Girl From the North Country
by nikiness
Summary: AU: Jax is caught up in a fast downward spiral. Emma is the prodigal daughter, returning after four years in the system. She's running from something and when it catches up with her she's going to need all the family she can get. Jax/Emma.
1. Coming Home

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

**Authors Note: **I feel like I need to be honest here and tell you that I'm really, _really_ bad at finishing what I start. With that out of the way, I am trying out my very first SOA fic AND my very first use-of-an-OC fic. God help me. Reviews are appreciated & read.

**xxxx**

Leaning back against the hot metal of the garage siding, Emma Reid closed her eyes. The metal would be scorching hot sometime this afternoon but for now, at least, it was just pleasantly warm against her bare shoulders and the places that her tank top didn't cover. Which was a two inch strip just above the waist band of her jeans.

Even through her wayfarers the sun was bright on her eyelids, she could see tiny spots of light dancing in the blurry darkness.

No one was up yet, but it was a Saturday morning, so she wasn't surprised. Friday nights around the Teller-Morrow garage were usually a good time with the booze flowing like water and plenty of croweaters hoping they could fuck and suck their way to old lady status. Not that that usually happened. There were few of the boys who would make an old lady out of a chick they knew had gotten up close and personal with the dicks of every single one of their brothers.

It was only nine in the morning, she knew she had a few more hours before everyone was up and moving around, but she didn't care. It was just nice to stand here, smell the motor oil and all the scents that had been so familiar to her once. Her mother had kicked it when Emma had been six. She'd had the big C word although Emma hadn't really understood that when she'd been a kid. All she'd known was that mommy smelled strange and couldn't live at home anymore. She'd stayed with a friend of her mom's until after she'd died and CPS had swooped in on her. They'd contacted the man listed on her birth certificate, although she could only recall having met him once or twice before that.

Conner Reid had rode in like a slightly off-white night on a Harley and scooped her up even though he'd had no idea what to do with a six year old daughter and she had no experience having a full time dad. They'd picked their way through that mine field together, though, and somehow come through on the other side.

Mostly.

She'd grown up in this garage with her dad and all of his brothers from another mother. Emma had slowly figured out that the club her daddy spent most of his time hanging around in wasn't _just_ a club for motorcycle enthusiasts who also happened to all be mechanics. But by that time she hadn't cared. The boys Conner called brother had all become silly Uncles or second father's to her and to be honest, she didn't really care what they did to earn their incomes. They were good people, people she'd known and loved. So even though she'd had her suspicions and her share of worry when her dad wouldn't come home until four or five in the morning, she'd kept her mouth shut and hadn't pried.

She didn't need the truth spelled out for her, although she was almost positive that her dad would have told her if she'd pressed him.

The corners of Emma's lips turned up as she thought about those eight years she'd spent learning how to fix a carburetor and spending the night in the bedrooms above the clubhouse while her dad had partied into the wee hours of the morning. The thump of the bass had always lulled her to sleep on those nights.

She could remember Uncle Bobby's banana bread and macaroni and cheese. The home cooked meals he would always make her before she was sent upstairs with a movie to watch and her favorite stuffed animal. He always chided her father, telling him that he needed to learn how to cook because Emma needed some meat on her bones.

In Emma's mind, she'd had the perfect childhood. Though she was sure that many would disagree with her. In fact, the state of California had disagreed so vehemently that when her father had gotten locked up behind some murder charges, they'd thrown her into foster care without a second thought.

Gemma and Clay, they'd fought to keep her with them. With the club and her family where she belonged. But the state hadn't even considered their pleas, their offers. She'd kept in almost constant contact with them through letters she'd mail off in secret and phone calls if she could get to a payphone without being caught by her first stet of foster parents. They were the straight and narrow type, yuppies with an SUV and a pretty little beach house in Cabo. Jeannette, her foster mother, couldn't have children of her own and it might have been okay if it hadn't been for the fact that she missed her father, her family, more than she would have missed breathing.

But when her Jeannette's husband got caught with a roaming eye and equally roaming hands with Jeannette's best friend the divorce papers hadn't even been drawn up before they'd been shipping her back. Jeannette had sat her down, told her how sorry they were but that with everything going on in their lives they didn't think it was fair to drag them down with her.

That was when Emma had realized that she was disposable. She hadn't been a member of that family, not really. Half because she hadn't wanted to be and half because they'd never cared about her half as much as they cared about themselves.

Halfway through her second foster family was when she'd stopped calling, stopped writing. Stopped accepting the once every two months visit the state allowed her with her father. She knew she was hurting him, hurting all of them. But if they'd known how bad things had gotten there would have been no keeping them away and someone's blood would have ended up on her hands.

And what then? The state would have just shipped her to another home, another family that hadn't really wanted her as much as they wanted the fat paycheck that came along with giving her a roof over her head. No matter what, they weren't going to let her go home again.

At eighteen she'd rounded out her resume with a total of 17 foster homes. It was a pretty good record, she thought grimly, especially when each had been progressively worse than the last. Except for Ms. Newton, the grandmother of five whose kids wouldn't bother to bring them to see her. So she'd taken up fostering so that she wouldn't be so lonely.

It had been a bright spot in an otherwise dark few years.

But Ms. Newton had been pushing seventy-five and when she'd broken her hip and ended up in the hospital the state had decided that she wasn't fit anymore and yanked her license to foster. Emma hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye.

Her last foster family had definitely been the worse and she'd been more than happy to be shown the door the morning she turned eighteen.

She hadn't been legal for more than a few minutes before they'd given her the boot. She couldn't blame them though, she had a long history by that point and more than one juvie booking photo to hang on the walls of the clubhouse.

She'd spent a few days near Sacramento, getting her head on straight and figuring out what her next move should be. But it had been clear from day one that the only thing she'd want to do was head straight home.

So she did.

Although, now that she was here her stomach was twisting into knots and she was starting to second guess herself. What if she wasn't welcome any more. Her dad was still locked up and she wasn't sure exactly what that meant for him with the club.

"Party's over, sweetheart." The voice was familiar and Emma's eyes darted over to Tig, leaning against the door jamb while he took a piss in the parking lot. Rolling her eyes behind her sunglasses, Emma straightened up from her slouch.

"Oh yeah?"

Tig nodded, giving her the once over she remember seeing him give a long line of croweaters. Like he was at an all-you-can-eat buffet and she was the dessert table. "Yup, so you'd be better off to make yourself scarce before the old ladies start rollin' in."

He was obviously still hung over, squinting into the bright California sunlight. While the croweaters and the sweetbutts might hold sway over the Sons at night, the old ladies kept them on the straight and narrow during the day. Usually, they'd be gone before Gemma or Luanne rolled up to collect Clay and Otto and drag their still drunk asses home.

"Can I bum a smoke?" she asked, her lips curling up into a smile when she thought about how little things had changed since she'd been gone.

Tig shrugged, still giving her a patented leer that somehow had all the sweetbutts dropping panties for him left and right. She'd never understand that but maybe she'd keep him going for a few more minutes before she shut him down.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of American Spirits and a lighter and tossed them her way. She'd taken up smoking somewhere in between foster home four and five, when she'd finally realized that things weren't gonna get much better.

Fishing a smoke out of the beaten up cardboard pack, she tucked it between her lips. She took the first few puffs to the head, the nicotine hit making her a little dizzy. It had been a while since she'd been able to get her hands on some cigs.

She pocketed the cigarettes, giving him a sweet smile. "How about I hold on to these for you."

Tig's leer deepened, "Sweetheart, I'll let you hold on to a lot more than."

Taking another quick hit off of the cigarette, Emma pushed her sunglasses up higher on the bridge of her nose. "And then," she drawled, pulling her words out slow. "When my daddy gets out of the slammer he can gut you real slow," she teased.

Confusion fluttered over Tig's face. He wasn't really that sharp when he'd spent a long night drinking Jack and going face down in some sweetbutt's pussy. "Emma?" he asked, slow and uncertain.

"In the flesh, Tigger," she confirmed, letting a happy grin slide across her face for the first time in a long time.

"Well, I'll be goddamned," he muttered, looking equal parts disappointed that she'd suddenly crossed into out of bounds territory and happy. He looked genuinely happy to see her.

_Do not cry_, she told herself sternly. _Do not fucking cry_. Someone looking happy to see her, actually happy to see her had been rare these last few years. In fact, almost nonexistent.

Quicker than she thought he could move that hung over he slapped the cigarette out of her hand. "And your daddy would _also_ gut me real slow if he knew that I was letting you smoke. Shit, you ain't even old enough, are you?"

"Legal," she said, plucking the smoke up out of the dirt and bringing it to her lips again. "In the eyes of the state of California, I am legal to smoke, fuck and gamble."

The crunching of tires hitting gravel drew both of their attention as a sleek black Beamer slid up to the front door of the office that Emma remembered spending so much time in as a kid. Gemma looked perfect, as usual. Her hair was flawless like she was getting ready for a business lunch with the goddamn President. Except that maybe if she were she wouldn't have been wearing skin tight black leather pants.

Or maybe she would, Emma though with an internal giggle. She _was_ Gemma, after all.

Emma took another long pull off of the cigarette, trying to quiet or kill the fucking butterflies that had suddenly erupted in her middle. Was Gemma going to hug her or hit her, she wasn't really sure.

"Gem!" Tig grabbed a hold of her arm and she was caught up in his wake as they made their way over to the Beamer. "Look at what the cat dragged in. Took her for a croweater overstayin' her welcome at first…"

Gemma pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and her eyes narrowed as she tried to catch a good look at Emma's face.

"That had better not be who I think it is," Gemma said and her face was completely unreadable.

"I don't know," Emma said, trying to retain at least some of the ground she'd started out on. "Would it be a bad thing or a good thing if I was who you thought I was?"

Gemma's face broke into a smile, finally, and she reached her arms out. "Oh baby, we've missed you."

Choking down tears, Emma stepped into the arms of the woman who had been a second mother to her, who had taught her father everything he knew about taking care of little girls not that Gemma had had any herself.

Maybe that was the reason that Gemma had latched on to her as hard as she had. She'd never gotten the chance to braid hair or buy dresses, not that Emma had been much willing to wear them past the age of six.

Growing up around all those boys and overgrown boys, she'd been a little tomboy right up until the very day she'd left in the back of that gray sedan. Leaning against the back glass like she could fall through and run back home.

In an instant though, Gemma's hands were vices around her upper arms. "Now, where the fuck have you been?" she snarled. "Don't you know what you've been doing to your poor daddy? You haven't seen the man in… what? Four fucking years? You stop calling, you stop writing… you think that's okay?"

Emma's lips folded into a tight line. She'd halfway been expecting this. She'd known that Gemma would be angry, shit… maybe they all would. She didn't blame them, but at the same time she knew in her heart she'd done the only thing she could have.

To hear their voices, to look at her father… she wouldn't have been able to hold it all in and then someone would have died and someone else and who knew how much blood would be on her hands right now. She already had enough; her hands would never be clean again.

"And get those stupid sunglasses off of your face," Gemma growled. "I want to see your eyes when you tell me how sorry you are!"

Before Emma could untangle herself from the Queen of Charming's quick hands, her sunglasses had been knocked on the ground and Gemma hissed, a sharp intake of breath.

Emma met her eyes, just as stubborn as the day was long. She refused to feel ashamed for the state of her face right now. Gemma could dig at her all she wanted but Emma had grown up more in the last few years than a girl her age had any right to.

"Baby," Gemma pulled her in again for a hug, her angry forgotten for a moment. "What happened to you? Who did this to your face?"

Emma shrugged, "Nothing."

The older woman pushed her back, holding her at arms distance. "That is _not_ nothing."

Tig was still hovering in the background and Emma cut her eyes to him, full of meaning that fortunately Gemma caught. "C'mon, baby girl," Gemma said, thankfully catching Emma's meaning. "Let's get you into the office so we can catch up."

The tone of her voice brooked no argument and Emma let herself be towed along behind the older woman into the small office. A calendar of half-naked women was still hung up on the wall and everything looked almost like it had looked when she left with the exception of a desktop computer finally perched on the desk. Looked like Clay had finally broken down and agreed to buy one.

Gemma sat her down and perched on the corner of the desk, conveniently blocking Emma's path to the door just in case she decided to bolt.

"Now, tell me," Gemma insisted, "What happened to you, sweetheart?"

"Nothing important," Emma lied again, "And it's already been taken care of, so it doesn't really matter anyway."

Gemma looked like she was going to argue but Emma cut her off at the pass. "So, what'd I miss?" she asked, leaning back in her chair and propping her feet up on the desk. "I feel like I've been gone an entire lifetime."

The older woman sensed that the conversation she wanted to have with Emma wasn't going to happen, so she begrudgingly allowed her to steer the conversation to safer waters. "Oh, you know," she said, "The more things change the more things stay the same. Your daddy's parole was denied, again. He'd really love a visit from you, you know. He's been worried sick. We've been trying to get some information for him from the state but they wouldn't breathe a word. Said he'd lost his rights to make decisions about you when he'd put a bullet in that sonofabitch."

Emma let herself relax, finally, caught up in the familiar lull of Gemma's voice as she rattled off a list of everything that had been going on while she'd been gone. She heard about Unser's cancer and the last few Taste of Charming benefits that Gemma had run. But Gemma was obviously dancing around the subject that Emma had been fishing around for when she'd first asked for news from back home.

She wanted to know if Jax had actually gone through with marrying Tara. He'd been dating her pretty seriously when she'd been hauled off and there'd been talk about buying a ring.

"Oh," Gemma exclaimed, suddenly, like she'd just remembered some unimportant detail that might be of at least a little interest to Emma. "And Jax went off and got himself married."

Emma hoped the disappointment wasn't obvious on her face. Once, she'd been an open book and her eyes had given her away each and every time she'd tried to get one over on her dad or anyone else. But four years in the system and she thought that she might have gained at least a passable poker face.

"Good for him," she said, when she thought that she could finally force herself to speak without her voice shaking.

She liked to think that nobody noticed but she couldn't lie, she'd been secretly harboring a crush on Jax for a very long time. Before she'd left she'd known that she would follow that boy to the ends of the earth. But he'd been so far up Tara Knowles' ass that she'd wondered if he would suffocate to death up there.

She doubted Jax had ever thought of her as anything more than an annoying little sister, pestering him to teach her how to change out some brake pads. It had faded over time because she'd had more important things to worry about like keeping herself from going insane over the last four years but she'd still thought about him from time to time. More often than she probably should have.

"Not really," Gemma said coldly. "After Tara took off and left town he kind of went into a tail spin. Started fucking everything with a pulse and a pussy. Ended up with some junky slut. If everything goes well, though, it'll be over soon."

Emma struggled to keep her composure. So it wasn't Tara, at least, she thought with some triumph. She'd had a feeling that Tara had been hoping she could take Jax away from the life. Keep him happy and well fed on a steady diet of bullshit and uptight pussy while she dragged him off to Chicago to become a doctor.

"So, who's the lucky ho bag?" she asked, as nonchalantly as she could manage.

"Wendy Case," Gemma said, her voice reeking with disdain.

The name didn't sound familiar, although the hang around biker sluts and croweaters had rarely registered on Emma's radar. She'd know a face if she saw one though, although to be honest she was hoping that she wouldn't run up against Wendy Case.

"But," Gemma continued, "Once the divorce is final, I'm running that bitch out of town on a rail."

Emma couldn't help but smile; this was the Gemma she had grown up with. The no nonsense, trash talking bitch of the biker world that had taught her almost everything she knew about being a strong woman. If it hadn't been for everything that Gemma had pounded into her head growing up Emma wasn't sure she could have survived the four years in foster care without turning into a blubbering mess.

Instead of damaged she liked to think of herself as forged by fire, hardened into something solid and unbreakable by years and years spent dealing with the bullshit that life and the state of California had shoved her way.

Gemma reached out again, slowly, and gently touched the bruising on Emma's face. "I wish you would tell me about this, baby."

Emma shrugged her shoulders and shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She was really starting to regret that she hadn't given her face some time to heal before she'd blown back into town. But she'd been running out of money and the ticket back home was burning a hole in her pocket.

"Gemma," she said, her voice strained. "I have a favor to ask…"

"What is it, baby?" Gemma's hands were still fluttering near Emma's face but they pulled back when she realized that she wasn't going to get anything out of her surrogate daughter.

"I need a place to crash until I can figure things out… like, where I'm going or what I'm going to do. I'd like to stay in the clubhouse if that's okay. I know you'll have to run it past Clay and the guys and that the clubhouse has kind of been a sausage fest kind of thing but it would really mean a lot to me."

She breathed it out all in one long, fast sentence. Emma hadn't asked for help from anyone in years and she hated that she had to start now especially when she had only _just_ come home. She'd learned up front and fast that asking for help made you weak and being weak got you nowhere. But now, she was in between a rock and a hard place. Most ex-foster kids would be the first to admit that they spent at least a year or two homeless, bouncing from couch to couch or sleeping in their cars if they had one. Unless you happened to be a lucky fuck and you ended up with that one family who actually gave a shit about you.

Most didn't. Emma didn't. And when she'd finally left that shithole she'd done it with nothing more than the clothes on her back and some busted knuckles. Her foster father was handsy but most of the time Emma's jail bait status had kept his hands from wandering even if his eyes couldn't stay in his head half the time.

She'd only been eighteen for less than ten minutes before he thought he'd seize his opportunity. It hadn't gone down too pretty and she hadn't exactly been thrown a going away party before unceremoniously being dumped out on the streets.

She'd had enough money to buy a one way ticket back home and something off the value menu at McDonalds. But that was it. And now, here she was, fresh off the bus and looking for a hand out. It stung.

"Baby," Gemma's voice was firm. "You're gonna stay with me. Your daddy would tear a strip off my ass if he knew I was letting you stay at the clubhouse."

Emma swallowed back the hot sting of tears. She hadn't known what to expect when she came home but the open warmth that Gemma had welcomed her home with had done a lot to sooth the frazzled ends. But she couldn't and _wouldn't_ accept this.

"Gemma," she said, her voice making it clear that she wasn't willing to argue. "I love you for that, honestly I do, but I can't. I need to figure things out. The last four years haven't exactly been a trip to Disney Land, if you know what I mean, and I think I'd rather stay at the clubhouse. My dad will have to understand."

Gemma's eyes narrowed but she nodded, a noncommittal nod that meant that she didn't like her answer and that it wasn't the last Emma had heard from her on this subject.

"I'll talk to Clay," she said finally. "But if the answer is no you're coming home with me and that's final."

Before Emma could push the issue any farther there was a brief, hard knock at the door and the last person that Emma wanted to see right now pushed his way in.

"Hey, mom. I need—," Jax broke off, staring down at Emma with a mixture of confusion and shock on his face.

"Emma?" he exclaimed and she offered up a half smile. She'd thought, once, that the four years she'd spent as a ward of the state had killed her ability to bend the corners of her lips into anything but a teeth baring grimace. But half an hour home and she was starting to think that maybe she could learn again.

Jax swooped her up into a hug, nearly lifting her off of her feet. "What the hell?" he demanded, giving her a once over. He grabbed her chin with the same familiarity she remembered and twisted her face gently into the light.

"Not important," Emma said firmly, brushing his hands away and forcing the half smile to stick. She was absolutely certain now that she should have waited it out a few more weeks and made do doing what every other ex-foster kid does before she came back home to Charming. If she'd given her face a little more time to clear up she wouldn't be dealing with these questions.

"What do you mean, not important?" Jax demanded, "You show up here after four fucking years of no contact with your face beat up and you think it's not important?"

She hadn't really thought that Jax would have been too pressed by her radio silence. When she'd left he'd been wrapped up in Tara to the exclusion of everything and everyone else and from what she'd gotten from Gemma, it sounded like everything after that would have been a blur of pussy, booze and weed.

"Sorry?" she offered, fidgeting with the silver ring she wore on her right hand. She hadn't worn it in four years because in the system if you acted like anything you owned was important to you it was sure to be the first thing they took. It was unfamiliar now and she would have to get used to its weight again.

It had been her mother's engagement ring and it was one of the only things she still kept. She'd learned, over the years that the lighter you traveled the better off you were.

"Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head. "Sorry?"

Emma gave him a sheepish smile and a quick shrug of her shoulders. "So… you. How have you been?" she quickly changed the subject because the state of her face and her four year radio silence were subjects she wasn't interested in talking about yet.

Jax's face darkened but when he answered her he didn't let on that she'd struck a nerve. "Same old, same old. When did you get back?"

"This morning," she said, watching as Gemma quietly got up and slipped out of the room from the corner of her eye. "Eighteen and out," she joked.

"So, you forgot how to use a phone or send a goddamn letter while you were gone?" he demanded, once his mother was out of the room. "I—we missed you. Had no idea what was going on with you. Courts wouldn't tell Gemma where you were and after that first foster home we lost track of you."

Emma sighed and ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back off of her face. "Look," she said, "I know that that was shitty of me. But a lot was going on and I don't want to talk about it. Gemma already read me the riot act anyway," she assured him. "I really am sorry though."

Jax didn't say anything but his sharp blue eyes searched hers, looking for answers she was sure. He'd always been smart, she knew that he'd pick up quick that there were reasons behind her decision to go off the grid where her family was concerned. And he'd want to know those reasons.

But she wasn't ready. She probably wouldn't ever really be ready to talk. She wasn't sure if she could if she wanted to. Maybe she'd tell him one day, let the story pour out of her like it had threatened to do so many times in the past.

"Where are you staying?" he asked, looking around for any luggage she might have toted in with her.

"At the clubhouse if Clay says it's okay," she said, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "At least until I figure out what to do next."

And she would need to hurry up and figure that out because she had next to nothing to her name. Maybe, if she was lucky, she'd be able to scrounge up some change from the very bottom of her pockets for the drink machine in the back of the garage.

But besides that, she didn't have anything to speak of. She knew though that she was still faring way better than some of the kids she'd passed along the way in the system. Eighteen and out for them usually meant finding a place to sleep underneath of an overpass and panhandling so that they could buy some booze or a cheeseburger.

"He'll say its okay," Jax said matter of factly, and it was then that she noticed the back patch on his kutte. _So he'd moved up in the world_, she thought wryly. _Good for him. _When she'd left, Jax was in the middle of prospecting the club with Opie. Clay and Piney had been riding their asses hard too, determined that no one would see them skate in on a First 9 legacy. "C'mon, let's go see if we can find you a bed that Tig hasn't slept in."

Emma couldn't keep the smile off of her face as she followed Jax back into what was slowly becoming a blazing heat, the kind of slow burn that peaked out just after noon but smoldered until the sun went down.

Yeah, maybe she could manage to re-learn this whole smiling business after all.


	2. Booze & Boys

**Authors Note:** Sorry for the relative shortness of this chapter. Future chapters will probably be much longer but I didn't want to overload on backstory, etc. Please excuse any typos, I'm literally falling asleep while I finish writing this but I wanted to get something up tonight. I've been slacking on my deadlines. As always, reviews keep me motivated, good or bad. So, let me know what you think. XOXO.

**xxx**

The sun beat down on the leather of his cut as Jax hunched over the cigarette he was smoking. The roof of the garage gave him the perfect vantage point of the rest of the parking lot and a private place to be alone with his thoughts.

After he'd shown Emma to her room he'd hesitated in the hallway for a few minutes. Just long enough to hear her shoving something that sounded a lot like a dresser in front of her door before he heard the shower turn on.

That and the bruises swelling her face didn't sit well with him. He knew that her father would be hunting blood if she could see her right now.

It had been four years since any of them had seen hide nor hair of Emma and he knew that it was likely wasn't because she'd been adjusting well to whatever foster home the state of California had dumped her in. Something had happened to her, something she wasn't ready to talk about he wasn't sure if she ever would.

The last time he'd seen her, she'd been a gangly little girl, hanging onto Gemma like her very life depended on it while that stuck up bitch social worker was dragging her into the car. Emma had been all arms and legs, bony elbows and knobby knees.

Between him and Opie, she'd been the annoying kid sister he'd never had. She was always underfoot, spending most of her time at Teller-Morrow or the clubhouse. She'd half grown up there before Bobby had finally kicked some sense into her father and he'd moved them to a little two bedroom split level closer Charming's main street. The clubhouse was no place for a little girl to grow up, seeing the kind of shit that went on there after hours.

But still, she was always there, begging him or Opie to teach her how to play pool, pouring shots for Piney and sometimes, once she could see over the counter tops, making dinner for the boys while they were in church.

The foundation had already been laid for the woman she would grow into when she left but nothing had prepared him for the woman who had shown back up at their doorstep. She was evasive, quick with her mouth and her eyes had lost that sweet sparkle that had all of her surrogate uncles wrapped around her pinky finger.

He wondered absently how things would have played out if Conner hadn't taken the heat for the club and gone down for murder one. Or if Gemma and Clay had been allowed to take over custody for him. Who would she have grown up to be then?

It was hard to reconcile the sweet, sensitive girl he'd remembered to this woman who had stood in front of him, all sharp edges and teeth.

"Jackson!"

Peering over the edge of the roof he could see Gemma, hands on her hips, standing in the middle of the parking lot like she was standing on the middle of a stage. Gemma had always commanded attention, she took it like it was her right and maybe it was.

"Up here, mom," he said, finally, after he'd finally decided that there was no way she was going to leave him peace and move on.

Gemma shielded her eyes with the flat of her hand, "I'm coming up."

When she reached the top of the ladder, her climb hampered by the four inch stilettos that she always wore, Jax helped her step cautiously onto the tar black roof covered in a fine grit of dirt and oil just like everything at Teller-Morrow.

"Don't get why you always wanna sit up _here _of all places," she was muttering as she finally got her balance back and carefully perched next to him where he had been sitting before she'd been hollering his name all over the place like a banshee.

"It's quiet," Jax said, pointedly. "What's up, ma?"

Gemma nodded over at the clubhouse, "What do you make of her?" she asked, softly.

"Emma?" he questioned even though he really didn't need to. Jax fiddled with his lighter for a few beats, finally lighting up another cigarette and inhaling deeply. "I don't know, ma."

"If her daddy could see her face right now…" Gemma muttered. "He'd skin the bastard alive that did that."

He didn't say anything, just nodded and took another hit off of his coffin nail. "I know you didn't come up here for nothing," he said, finally. "So tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm just wondering what happened to that little girl," his mother said finally. She pulled a Virginia Slim out of the pack she'd been denting with her fingertips and lit it off of his cherry. "Something has changed in that girl and I'm not sure it's for the better. She says she's not sure if she's gonna stick around…"

Jax sighed, "Well, you can't force her to do something she doesn't want to do. Can't make her stay if she doesn't want to."

"Baby, I know that." Her tone was infinitely sad, her heart hurting for that little girl she'd all but raised like one of her own. "But she's family. Is it so wrong that I want her here with all of us watching out for her? That poor girl looks like she hasn't had anybody to love her since they took her."

He didn't know what to say so he wrapped one arm around his mother's shoulders. True, he wanted her to stay just as much as Gemma did, but he'd learned a long time ago when Tara had shown herself the door that you just couldn't make someone stay no matter how much you begged, wished and pleaded.

Once, he would have said that Emma would never leave Teller-Morrow, the club, her father. But he realized that he had no idea what Emma would or wouldn't do anymore. He no longer knew her. She had been a child when she left, now she was a woman who had grown up all on her own.

**xxx**

Emma wrung out her damp hair and bent at the waist, wrapping it tightly in a one of the threadbare towels she'd found underneath of the sink. It wasn't much but it was more than she'd had in some of the places she'd lived so it would do just fine.

Looking in the mirror, now that all the makeup she'd tried to use to cover up the bruises had been washed down the drain, she winced. It was worse than it had been as the bruises deepened before finally fading away. The edges were yellow and the middles were a deep blue-purple. It looked disgusting, the swollen flesh making her face a gruesome contrast.

She sighed and dug into her backpack for her concealer and foundation. It was time to do a little damage control. She didn't have much to work with, just what she'd managed to liberate from a drug store on her way down but she'd have to make it work. Her face looked worse without the makeup and she wasn't up to answering any more questions.

Once she was satisfied that her face was the best it was going to get she finished toweling off and slipped into the only other pair of clothing she had, again liberated since she'd come home with less than a dollar in her pocket. Emma wiggled into a skin tight pair of jeans and stuck her feet back into her Chuck Taylors before yanking on her only bra and a black tank top.

Fortunately, it was the middle of summer in Charming and the weather alternated between warm and scorching hot because there was no way she'd have been able to make it out of the Wal-Mart with anything heavier. She'd used the trick she'd picked up from one of the girls who had once been her foster sister. She'd brought in the maximum amount of clothing allowed into the dressing room and wiggled into the jeans and tank top before pulling the clothing she'd been wearing on top. Then, she'd walked out of the store without a look over her shoulder.

It was all about confidence, really, just like most everything else. Act uncertain and they could smell a shoplifter from a mile away.

If anything, Emma radiated confidence. It had been just another skill she'd managed to hone in the foster system. Confidence was everything, well right after having a nasty right hook. The other kids in the group homes were like dogs, they could smell fear and weakness. The confidence might not be legitimate but as long as she could pull it off that's all that mattered.

When she was dressed and convinced that her face didn't look any worse than it had when she'd suffered Gemma's interrogation an hour and a half ago, she shoved the dresser back into place and swung her door open.

There was no one in the hallway but she could hear movement downstairs where everyone must have been waking up.

"Shit!" she heard someone mumble after a clunking noise; obviously one of her hung over Uncles had stumbled into something. She suppressed a giggle. In all the ways that counted, everything was just like she'd left four years ago.

When Emma reached the bottom of the stairs, everything ground to a halt. "Emma?" Bobby howled, barreling towards her and lifting her into a bear hug. He planted a kiss on her forehead before he set her back down on her feet.

He held her out at arm's length, his hands firm on her shoulders as his eyes swept over her. Then, he quickly yanked her back in for another bear hug. Emma squeezed her eyes shut; she could feel the tears threatening to spill past her lashes. Gritting her teeth, she willed herself once more not to cry when Bobby finally released her.

"Missed you too, Uncle Bobby," she said, when she was sure that her voice wouldn't shake.

"The hell you did," Bobby growled, "What's it been, Ems. Four years?"

Uh oh, Emma thought, here we go. She'd known rolling back into town like this would not come without its fair share of heartache, interrogation and even anger. She'd done wrong by her family even if she'd done it for all the right reasons. Bobby and Gemma, they were both mad at her and had every right to be.

She didn't want to think about what it would be like when she saw her dad again. She knew that now that she'd shown her face in Charming she couldn't put off seeing her father for long. Emma was dying to see him, to tell him that she loved him but his anger at her dropping off the grid for the last four years was something she could definitely do without.

"Four _fucking_ years, Emma," Bobby ranted and she knew that he was well and good angry. Her Uncle Bobby didn't have a hair trigger, not like her father. He was calmer, more methodical about his anger. So seeing it so clearly on his face now shook her. She'd known he would be angry, that they all would, but she hadn't been expecting _this_.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "Gemma already read me the riot act. I know, I know… I fucked up. It just got to be too much."

Bobby's eyes softened, "That's when you need your family the most, kiddo." His eyes narrowed again when he caught sight of her bruised face. "What the hell happened?" he demanded. He dragged her out of the dim light and over to the bar, his firm hand on her chin turning her face this way and that so that he could really examine the damage.

Emma shrugged her shoulders, "Just getting clumsy in my old age," she tried, going for a joke instead of brushing him off like she had done Gemma. She knew, instantly, that Uncle Bobby wouldn't let up. He was like a dog with a bone sometimes when he got a hold of something.

"You gonna tell me you fell down some stairs?" he demanded, his eyes flashing. His own father had been a drunk that liked to stumble home from the bar late and beat his mama. He'd heard every excuse in the book when a woman didn't want to admit where her bruises, her broken bones had come from.

Emma breathed a deep sigh of relief when they were interrupted by Clay bursting into the clubhouse. Clay was the perfect choice for President after Big John Teller had passed away. He was a man that commanded attention, demanded it just by entering a room.

"Look what the cat dragged home," he said, letting a whistle.

"Uncle Clay!" Emma bounded into his arms. Besides Bobby, Clay had always been one of her favorite Uncles. He'd never taken her to the zoo like Bobby had, he'd never made her a wicked batch of blueberry muffins when she was getting over her first break up but there had always been something about him that had drawn her to him like a moth to a flame as a child.

Maybe it had been the way Clay had never treated her like a little girl. He didn't know what to do with little girls, didn't know what to do with kids period having never had any of his own that he knew of. So he'd treated her like one of the boys, like a prospect almost. It had made Emma feel grown up.

He had talked to her as though he expected her to understand everything that he'd said. She'd learned a lot from him, just like she had learned something from every member of her sweet, dangerous dysfunctional family.

When Clay released her she saw his eyes darken when he took in the bruise on her face. His eyebrow shot up but thankfully he said nothing. Clay was a man who understood that sometimes a person just had to have a secret or two. As long as it wouldn't bring any blow back onto the club he could live with that.

And if Emma felt like telling him who he needed to string up by the nut sack then he would deal with that then.

"Finally bothered to come home where you belong, huh?" He reached into the pack of cigarettes poking up over the top of his breast pocket and jabbed it between his lips. He lit one, inhaled deep and offered her a smoke, "You take up the cancer habit yet?" His tone was teasing and there was no surprise in his face when Emma shrugged, nodding and accepting the smoke.

She was going to need a lot of nicotine to make it through these first few days, she could tell already. And maybe some booze. She absent mindedly glanced over at the fully stocked bar and wondered if she could slip a flask into her pocket before anyone noticed.

"Well," Clay drawled, a familiar smile spreading his lips. "Looks like we've got a comin' home party to throw."

**xxx**

It was close to midnight before Emma had a chance to disengage from the crowd that had descended on the clubhouse. She had to hand it to her Uncles, they knew how to throw a party. It was as good as any homecoming party they'd ever thrown for a brother getting out of the prison system. She could remember dozens of these parties although for most of them she'd been sent upstairs before the party really started.

Now, she was the guest of honor and she supposed there were many parallels that could be drawn between California's prison system and it's foster system. She'd been passed around like a party favor for most of the night, being welcomed home and hugged and fussed over.

Now that the croweaters and sweetbutts had shown up in earnest though she was able to slip away, her hand clutched around the neck of a bottle of Jack Daniels. Lying on her back on the picnic table closer to the garage than the clubhouse she had finally found some peace and quiet. Alternating between taking sips of Jack and staring up at the stars, she didn't notice him until he was standing over her.

"Wondered where you'd gone," Jax drawled, "Thought I was going to have to come out here and start punching," he'd teased, referring to the hang around who'd been angling to get into Emma's pants since the booze had started flowing.

Emma hauled herself and took another swig, "Hate to break it to you, cowboy, but I'm not fourteen years old anymore. State of California says I'm legal to fuck and that's good enough for me."

Jax winced, lighting up a smoke. "What?" Emma teased, "Making you uncomfortable?"

She had no idea. Jax was more than a little drunk and even though he could hold his liquor with the best he would be lying if he said he was thinking totally clear.

In his mind, he still thought of her as that scrawny fourteen year old girl that hung around, giving him sharp elbows to the ribs when he teased her. But his eyes told him that his mind had that totally wrong.

That was the part that was making him uncomfortable.

His eyes told him that it wasn't a little girl who had come back home, it was a woman. Somewhere in the last four years Emma had grown up and grown up good. She was all hips and tits and legs that looked like they wouldn't stop.

He cleared his throat and snatched the bottle of Jack out of her hand. "Well, darlin' the state of California might say you're legal to fuck but you're still not legal to drink."

Jax lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a long swig to distract him from the things that that pout on her face was making him feel. Things that he definitely shouldn't be feeling about Emma who had always been the annoying little sister he'd never wanted.

But now, she was most definitely anything but little.

He hoisted himself up onto the picnic table next to her, "So, you drunk enough to tell me what's going on with you yet?"

Emma shook her head, snatching the bottle back and taking another mouthful. She swallowed and the booze burned a fire straight down to her stomach. "Nope."

He let her take a few more swigs before he grabbed the bottle back. "How about now?" he asked, quirking his lips into a smile that had always made her stomach flip-flop when she was a newly minted teenager and had the mother of all crushes on Jax Teller.

"What do you want to know?" she asked, drunk enough to humor him but not drunk enough to let her guard down. She doubted she'd ever be drunk enough for that.

"Well, what happened to your face for starters."

It was fascinating how fast she threw that wall up, he thought, as we watched her expression completely shut down.

"Next question," she said, firmly. "For the last time, not answering that one."

He sighed, he knew that if word got back to Connor that his little girl had finally come home and looking beat all to hell to boot and that nobody had so much as lifted a finger to find the bastard who'd given her those bruises that there would be hell to pay. But she was keeping her secrets and he knew enough to know that if he pushed her any farther he'd get nothing else out of her all night.

Once upon a time Emma had been the queen of the silent treatment. Once, she hadn't spoken a single word to him for two weeks because he'd been out with Tara and had completely forgotten about her birthday party.

"Fine," he said, knocking back another couple of mouthfuls of booze and choosing his next question carefully. "How were things?"

She knew what he was fishing for. He wanted her to tell him how things had been in the system. If she'd been treated all right and maybe hoping that she'd slip up and tell him a little more than she'd been meaning to.

The alcohol and loosened her tongue but not that much. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," she drawled. A noncommittal if he'd ever heard one.

"Okay," she finally admitted. "Mostly the worst of times. But here I am and alls well that ends well or some shit."

She shot him a sideways glance out of the corner of her eye. She'd once thought that Jax Teller could walk on water but then, who hadn't. Even though Jax was five years older than she was, all the girls she'd gone to high school with knew who he was and all those girls were chomping at the bit to be able to say that they'd bagged him.

But then, her infatuation with him might have been in large part due to the short leash her father kept her on. She wasn't allowed to date boys her age and her only pool for potential teenage crushes came from Sam Crow. She had briefly had a crush on Lowell but for the longest time she could remember being convinced that Jax as it for her. And that one day, maybe soon, he'd realize his mistake in treating her like a little sister.

Of course, Jax had never seen her as anything but. She thought back with embarrassment at how she'd once thrown a huge fit and refused to talk to him for weeks on end because he'd blown off her birthday party because Tara had finally been willing to spread her legs.

She could feel a hot blush creep up her cheeks at the memories of her pathetic, preteen self lusting after Jax Teller. She was relieved that he'd never put two and two together and figured her out. God, she would have been mortified.

She still would.

Over time, though, the crush had faded just like her memories of her father, her memories of home.

Emma took another long pull from the bottle and sat it down at her feet, nearly empty. "Look," she said, "I seriously don't want to talk about this shit, okay? It sucked. A lot. The end. Jesus, can't any of you just be happy to see me?" she growled, thanking whoever was up there that there was liquid courage pumping through her. "I made it out of there and now I just want to come home and forget about that shit."

"Fair enough," he said, when she was done.

"Good," she said, her mouth turning up in a wry, one-sided smile. "Now, I'm going to go see a man about another bottle of whiskey. Want anything?"

Jax had barely had time to shake his head before he was watching her walk away. And he liked watching the way her hips undulated when she walked a little more than he should probably admit.

Running one work roughened hand over his face, he huffed his breath through his nose. Jax played with the idea of disappearing upstairs and passing out face down in his pillow for the night.

He didn't need to keep drinking.

That was a given.

Because obviously, if he was lost in the way Emma's hips swung when she walked, he was totally done drinking.


	3. Home Is

**Authors Note:** Nowwww we're getting somewhere. Maybe. As always, reviews keep me motivated, good or bad. So, let me know what you think. XOXO.

**xxx**

Emma sucked on her teeth, her fingers drumming a staccato rhythm on her knees. She was nervous, extremely nervous. She was starting to second guess every decision she had ever made in the last four years, especially this one. She'd known that the minute she'd gotten off of the bus in Charming it was only a matter of time before she would find herself here, waiting patiently in a dingy family waiting room to see her father.

She was expecting anger, definitely; anger that would rival Gemma and Bobby's. But she wasn't sure what else she could expect. Would he be sad? Disappointed? She knew that his disappointment would be the worse than anything either Gemma or Bobby could throw at her. Emma tugged at a stray thread at the knee of her fraying jeans.

"Reed," the officer called. He looked bored, flipping through the papers in front of him but not looking at any of them too closely. "This your first time?" he barked.

She shook her head but realized that the officer wasn't looking up at her, "No, sir," she said, quietly. "But it is my first time as an adult."

The officer went over a few of the finer points, rules and guidelines never once looking up at her. When he finally got through with his laundry list of things she could and couldn't do and the things she could and couldn't wear they'd ushered her into the visitation room. They'd taken umbrage with her wife beater tank top and said she was showing too much skin and for a moment she'd been terrified that they would send her away. She tried, quietly, to explain that she'd just been released from the foster care system and didn't have any other clothing. The officer, still not looking up, shrugged and mumbled something about a free pass, this time. Emma breathed a sigh of relief and reminded herself to ask Gemma if she could borrow a shirt the next time she came to visit her father.

He was sitting, hunched, over one of the tables at the far end of the room. His back was to her but she would have recognized him anywhere, even after four years.

Emma paused, forcing herself not to run. "Daddy?" she murmured quietly when she'd reached him. When Connor turned around, there was a wide grin on his face and Emma unconsciously relaxed.

"Well, fuckin' look at you," he whistled, pushing himself up on his feet and wrapping his arms around her. She remembered the officer's rules and reluctantly pushed her father away after exactly three seconds. Physical contact could last no longer than three seconds at a time.

"I missed you." Emma could feel herself tearing up, threatening to spill over her lashes and down her cheeks if she so much as blinked. "Oh my god, daddy, I missed you so much."

She slipped onto the bench opposite him and he stretched out his hands for hers. "You're looking more and more like your mother every single day," he said; and his voice was thick with emotion as he drank in his daughter. She'd been a gangly fourteen when he'd seen her last and now she was a woman who had more or less grown into her body, her features. She reminded him right down to her mannerisms of her mother, the only woman he had ever loved.

"You scared the shit out of me, baby girl," he said, and it wasn't quite as bad as she had been expecting unless he was just gearing up. "All those social services pricks would tell me was that you were okay but I know my baby girl… I know you weren't okay, Emma."

She shook her head, firmly and quickly. "No," she said, finally, quickly trying to figure out just how much she was willing to tell her father. "I wasn't okay. But I'm home now," she tried, futilely to stave off any more questions, "And that's all that matters, right?"

Connor shook his head, "I'm glad you're home, sweetheart, but I want to know why. Do you know how worried sick I was? Terrified that something had happened to you."

Emma took a deep breath and sighed, "I had a run of shitty foster homes. A long run. I ran away a couple of times but I didn't get far with no cash and I did a couple nights here and there in juvie. Chip off the ol' block," she quipped, glancing around at the prison visitation room. "But it ended up okay and the day I turned eighteen I hauled ass to Charming."

Connor was watching her; she knew that her face had always been an open book where her daddy had been concerned. She'd never been able to get one over on him, not once. "Okay," he said, slowly. "All that's a good place to start but now how about you tell me about them bruises that you're wearing on that pretty face of yours, honey."

Emma mentally swore. The bruises had all faded out to a sickly yellowish and she'd been able to do a damn good job covering up what remained with make up before she'd taken the bus up to Stockton. But she should have known that the minute her back was turned Bobby or Gemma or both would have been spilling their guts to her father.

"I fell down," she lied, knowing that her father would see right through that one but hoping to buy herself enough time at least that she could come up with something a little more substantial.

"Bullshit," Connor said, immediately. Just like she'd known he would. "Now, you gonna tell me the real story or do I have to find out on my own?"

"Fine," Emma said wearily, defeated. This game with her father could on for hours, he always knew when she was lying and he never, not once, let her get away with it. "I had a foster dad—," she said, wrapping the word dad in air quotes, "—who thought that when I turned eighteen I became an all you can eat buffet." She pushed on, talking over her father who had started swearing under his breath. "I took care of it, okay. Nothing else needs to be done and I do _not_ want the club involved, daddy. Not for this and not for me. I don't want anything to happen to this asshole beyond what I already gave him and I don't want to talk about it anymore."

Connor was quiet for a few excruciating moments and when he spoke again she could hear so many emotions in his voice that it was hard to single out just one. Anger was there, so was sadness and maybe something that was a little bit like pride. "Fine," he said, "Those are your terms, huh?"

Emma nodded firmly, "Yup. Those are my terms."

Connor reached out, gently pressing the flat of his palm against his only daughter's cheek. He couldn't see the bruises but he knew from Bobby that they were there. The thought of some asshole putting hands on _his_ daughter boiled his blood but Emma was like some sort of wild thing right now, a bird that he'd somehow managed to reach out and pluck from thin air. If he held on to tight she would run farther and faster than he could keep up. He had to play this her way if he wanted his daughter back. And god, did he want his baby girl back.

Twisting in his chair, Connor glanced at the big, industrial clock face set over the door that all of the inmates were shuffled through when visiting time was up. "Don't got a lot of time left, baby girl," he said, sadly. Reaching into the breast pocket of his prison issue blue denim button up he pulled out a square of paper with a name and a phone number written down on it. "This is the club lawyer, honey. Her name is Rosen. Shortly after I went in, I had her handle selling the house. There's been a couple thousand dollars sitting in a bank account for the last four years waiting for you. Gemma tells me you've been staying at the clubhouse and—."

Emma cut him off, shaking her head. "Daddy, I can't take that kind of money."

Connor fixed her with a stern look, the one that had made her blurt out all of her wrong doings imagined or real when she'd been a child. "Ems, I don't want to hear that bullshit. I put that money aside for you, to send you to college if you wanted to go or to help you set up a life for yourself if you didn't. What am I gonna use it for in here? I don't want you staying in the clubhouse like some kind of crow eater loose pussy. I want you to have a place to call your own. Now, I know I raised you too proud to take a hand out and that ain't what this is. It's your future, baby girl. I didn't do right by you getting myself locked up in this pit but I can do right by you now."

Emma ducked her head, chewing on her bottom lip in a vain attempt to hold back her tears. Four years of fear and loneliness and fighting for everything she'd ever had had left her a shell of the little girl who had left Charming four years ago. But now, sitting across from her dad and feeling his work roughed, warm hands wrapped around hers she was suddenly daddy's little girl again. It was a feeling she welcomed.

"Fine," she whispered, giving his hands a squeeze. "Give me her number; I'll call her when I get home."

Home.

Emma ran the word around her teeth, tasted it with her tongue as she said it. She'd been back for less than a week and already Charming was home again. It felt good to say it. It felt good to have a home to go back to even if it were just a dingy bedroom and bathroom combo in the MC's clubhouse.

It was better than anything else. It was better than _everything_ else.

**xxx**

It took her a few minutes to realize that she was sucking on the tip of her ponytail. It was a nervous habit she'd picked up as a child but she hadn't caught herself doing it in years and years. She felt stupid, standing in front of a row of cell phones at the AT&T store and chewing on her own hair.

But she needed a cell phone or she'd never be able to find a decent job and as much as she felt uncomfortable spending her dad's money, she knew this was what he'd wanted. He'd wanted her to be able to provide herself with anything that she'd needed.

She knew that he had secretly hoped that she would use that money for college but in the last four years, college had honestly never crossed her mind. She'd barely passed high school as it was, not for a lack of intelligence but just because she'd barely shown up and when she had, she was usually too tired to pay attention.

She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. Maybe one day, she'd think about college but right now she could only think about the day to day. Getting through and getting back on her feet and the slow metamorphosis she was undergoing. She felt more and more like herself every day.

"What's the difference between those two?" she asked the sales clerk, gesturing vaguely at two almost identical looking phones.

The clerk started off on his scripted spiel, comparing both models and no matter how hard she tried to concentrate on what he was saying, Emma found herself drifting off.

"Ma'am?"

Emma shook her head to clear it and glanced back at the sales clerk, who had finished his speech and was watching her with a peculiar expression. "Did that help you?"

"Oh," Emma paused, pulling her thoughts together. "Yeah, it did." She gestured with her chin towards a display case of iPhones. The older model looked like it was on sale. One of her foster mother's had had one and she remembered sneaking it off to her room to play Angry Birds. Until she'd been caught with it and the woman had been convinced that she was trying to steal from her. Emma's back twinged with the memories of that beating.

"What can I get one of those for?" she asked, a smirk settling on her lips. If she had to spend money, she might as well give herself _something_. She'd consider it a gift for having managed to survive the hell the state had dumped her off at time and time again.

Leaving the store with her new phone snapped into a gold case, she stopped to pick up a newspaper. Perching on a park bench she folded it open to the classifieds. Now that she could finally _call_ some of these people, maybe it was time to try to find herself a place of her own. One where she couldn't hear Tig grunting and groaning with some sweetbutt all night long.

**xxx**

"Mom?"

Gemma glanced up from the roast that she was seasoning when her oldest and only son poked his head into the kitchen. Wiping her hands off on a clean dish towel she pulled Jax in for a hug and kissed him on the cheek.

"Hey, baby. What's wrong?" she asked, her eyebrow shooting into her hairline. Jax had a pinched look on his face and if she knew her son, and she _knew_ that she did, she knew that something was bothering him.

Jax perched backwards on one of the dining room chairs and Gemma joined him, crossing her legs at the ankle and reaching for her pack of Virginia Slims.

"Wendy's telling me she's knocked up," he said, through clenched teeth. "She claims it's mine."

Gemma's breath rushed out in one long sigh. "Oh, Jackson."

Jax's face tightened, hardened. She could see so much of his father in that face that it was almost scary. But when he spoke, she could hear a whisper of the little boy he had once been, climbing up on her lap every time he skinned his knee rough housing with Opie. "What do I do, mom?"

"Nothing," his mother said, firmly. "You don't do anything. Not yet anyway. When's the last time you slept with her"

"Mom—," Jax protested but Gemma cut him off with a firm shake of her head. "Now's not the time to get shy, Jackson. Is there any chance this bitch could _actually_ be carrying my grandbaby?"

Jax paused, worried the heavy silver ring on his right hand between two fingers. "I guess so. Last time I hooked up with her was about three months ago, maybe a little more."

Gemma sighed, again. When her oldest boy fucked up he _really_ fucked up. Getting this junkie slut knocked up just when she'd been on her way out of their lives for good would just about take the cake.

"Alright," Gemma said, reaching out and squeezing her son's hand. "We don't do anything. You keep pushing that divorce through. If that bitch really is pregnant we'll find out soon enough. But don't you dare drop a single dime on that ho bag until you have the results of the paternity test in your hand. Who knows who else she's been fuckin'."

When Jax was gone, Gemma turned half-heartedly back to the pot roast. The fear only a mother could know was a hard knot in her chest. If this bitch really was carrying her grandchild there would be no getting rid of her. She would be tangled up in Jax's life and in his child's life permanently.

Reaching for another Virginia Slim, Gemma's mind worked fast, faster. There had to be a way out of this and quick before this ho bag got her claws hooked even further into Jax, kept him holding on to her out of fear that she might never let him see his kid.

If the kid was even his.

Gemma grabbed her car keys and tucked the roast in the oven on low. She needed to find this bitch, feel her out and figure out where her head was. Get a read on her. See if she could catch the lie in Wendy's eyes when she told Gemma that she was going to be a grandmother.

She prayed that she would be able to catch the lie in her eyes, anyway. As much as Gemma Teller wanted a grandbaby and soon she didn't want it at the expense of her only son ruining his life on some half-baked junkie crow eater.

Flipping open her cell phone, Gemma called the one person she could be absolutely positive would ride bitch with her and never second guess her motives.

Luanne.

The bane of her existence, her best friend and sister all in one, trashy, chain smoking package. A woman after her own heart, Luanne had a loud mouth on her and wasn't afraid to get bloody with some crow eater, even some supposedly knocked up crow eater.

**xxx**

Emma picked up her backpack, stuffed a little fuller than it had been when she'd stumbled back into town a few weeks ago. So far, it was still big enough to carry everything she owned. She liked to travel light but this might have been a little much, she thought.

She slung the strap over her shoulder and slid her sunglasses down on her nose. It was only just after noon and already the California sun hung hot and bright in the sky directly above her. Fortunately, it would only be a twenty or thirty minute walk to the little house she was looking at today.

She only hoped that she was dripping wet with flop sweat by the time she met the real estate agent.

"Running away to the circus?" a voice behind her drawled. Turning, she saw Jax hunched over his knees, sitting on top of the picnic table beside the garage. He had a cigarette between his lips, half smoked down, and judging by the pile growing at his feet it wasn't his first one that morning.

"Nah," she said, "Circus said I was cheery enough to be a clown. Heading out to look at this house for rent close to downtown."

If you could call the little stretch of Main Street a proper downtown. But it was all they had and it was familiar and warm and home to her. And she wouldn't trade it in for a thousand big cities, she was sure of that.

Jax swiped the sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand. "Let me give you a ride."

She started to protest but he was already on his feet, stubbing out the last nub of tobacco left on his cigarette and heading for his bike, parked a few feet away near Clay's. "No ifs, ands or butts. Get your ass on this bike, now," he said, the glimmer of a smirk on his lips which immediately reminded her of the teenage boy she'd left behind in Charming. He'd been just barely legal, he'd been knee deep in all the pussy he could handle and he knew that there was more where that had come from when it ran out.

Normally, she would hate those types of guys. The ones who were charming, sexy and knew it. But Jax pulled it off with an ease that she had both hated and envied. He was charming and he knew it, he exuded it from his pores. All he had to do was flash that grin of his and every woman within a three mile radius was throwing down for a chance to drop her panties for the infamous Jax Teller.

But on him, it had somehow gone from sleazy to endearing. It had become almost something of a joke between them when she had been a kid. Jax had treated her like the older brother she'd never had and she had worshipped him with a combination of childish hero worship and something more. The type of helpless, hopeless crush that only a fourteen year old girl could harbor.

Seeing that grin turned on her now made her stomach flip flop. She gritted her teeth and mentally gave herself a quick slap. _Pull it together, Ems. You're not fourteen and he has never, ever thought of you like that and you will __**not**__ under __**any**__ circumstances drop your panties for fucking Jax Teller. Got it?_

Returning his grin with a smirk, she begrudgingly threw her leg over the back of bike, pulling herself into the bitch seat and adjusting her back pack so that it wouldn't hamper her ability to balance herself.

Jax handed her his helmet to put on and she rolled her eyes and handed it back. It was a ten minute ride and she wasn't going to walk into a meeting with the real estate agent with helmet hair. Besides, maybe the wind would put some life back into her limp, sweaty hair before they got there.

Jax grabbed the helmet out of her hand and put it on, giving her a look that she almost always saw exclusively on her father's face when she'd been a kid and he had thought she was doing something stupid.

But he didn't fight her on and she tentatively wrapped her arms around Jax's waist, holding on tight as she got accustomed to the feeling of riding bitch again. It had been four long years since she'd last been on the back of a motorcycle but she was pleased to see that it was like, well, riding a bike in a manner of speaking. Emma could barely keep the shit eating grin off of her face, her body remembered what to do when they hit a turn even if her mind hadn't. Muscle memory was a fantastic thing, she thought as she leaned into a rather sharp curve with Jax.

Once they got closer to town, he slowed so that he could follow Emma's directions. She led them down a couple of side streets and finally they were in front of a tiny house that may once have been a dusty blue color.

It was in an older part of town, a neighborhood that had long ago been left to slowly decline as its inhabitants had either moved on to greener pastures or given up the inevitable fight against time. The porch sagged ominously in the middle and Emma gingerly climbed the steps, tapping on the door with her fingertips.

The wood of the front door was so weathered in places that she was afraid she'd put her fist right through if she knocked too hard.

There were a couple of clumps of hydrangeas fighting up out of the dirt near the front door, but even their blooms sagged towards the dirt as though they understood that there was nothing they could do to make this house look better than it did.

"You sure about this, darlin'?" Jax asked and she looked back to notice the wrinkled brow and tight lips. "I don't remember what it was like last time you were here but if you haven't noticed it's not exactly the nicest neighborhood."

Emma shrugged. "Yeah, well… if the price is right."

The door swung open and a greasy looking man with a paunch grinned up at her. He was short, barely came up to her collarbones and she wasn't exactly an amazon herself. "You must be Ms. Reed," he said with a grin that was a little too wide, a little too eager. "I'm Mr. Carr. Let me show you around, isn't she gorgeous?" he asked, waving his arms around a little too enthusiastically at the dilapidated house.

Rolling his eyes, Jax followed them inside. The interior was dingy, run down. Everything looked like it had last been updated in the 60s and had been stuck in some kind of time warp since then. The kitchen was ancient, the living room was small and doubled as a dining room. There were only two bedrooms, one the size of a shoebox and the other only slightly bigger.

"Ems," Jax whispered into her ear, tugging at her wrist to get her attention while the broker was going on and on about the house needing a little polish to really shine. Yeah, a little polish and a demolition crew, Jax thought. "Ems, this is totally not the place. Come on, there must be somewhere else we can look. You are _not _living in this dump?"

"Why?" she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, still trying to keep a polite smile on her face for the broker's sake. He seemed like a nice man, just not someone smart enough to realize that he was holding on to a sinking ship.

Jax paused. Why, indeed. He barely knew Emma now. When she'd left she'd been the kid sister he'd never had (or really wanted) who drove him up a wall with her incessant questions and the way she was always there, never taking a hint that he wanted some alone time with his girlfriend. Or girlfriends.

Whatever.

And now with a distance of four years between them he could honestly say that he didn't really know her at all. Not anymore. "Because your dad would tear a strip off of my ass if he found out you were living someplace like this," he finally whispered. But if he wanted to be honest, he wasn't sure that that was the only reason he was putting his foot down about this money pit.

The rate of crime and robberies had gone up in this little section of his home town. Samcro could stomp out people like Darby who tried to move in on Charming to push his smack but there wasn't much it could do when it was the town's own citizens who wanted to be dirtbags.

The idea of someone breaking into this house while Emma slept was all that kept playing like a loop in his head and the idea didn't sit right with him. He tried to clear the feeling out of his head but couldn't.

He couldn't even clearly explain why he was here in the first place. On the surface, sure, he was giving a ride to a patches daughter. Watching out for her during her first few weeks back in town. But he'd be lying if he didn't admit, at least to himself, that there had been something about the feeling of Emma's arms wrapped around his waist that had felt almost _too _good.

"Fine, then," Emma snapped, a spark in her eyes that did strange things to his ability to think clearly. "Show me a place that _is_ good enough for me, then. And it better not be some place so expensive that I have to go to work at Cara Cara to pay for it."

He followed her out of the house, wondering for the second time that day what he had gotten himself into.


	4. Bitches in Tokyo

**Authors Note:** Annnd, chapter four. So tell me, do you guys prefer longer chapters updated once every week/week and a half or shorter chapters updated more often? And when I say shorter I mean about the length of this chapter which _is _short for me. I'm a little wordy.

Reviews are fantastic! Thanks so much to everyone who has already left me feedback. Keep it up, let me know what you like… what you don't like… this is my first time venturing into SOA fic and definitely my first time trying to create an original character that can seamlessly fit into the SOA backstory. Let me know how I'm doing and where I'm failing, it definitely helps. XOXO.

**xxx**

"Jax," Emma sighed, rolling her eyes and shoving her dark hair out of her face. "I am not living in your house. You are not going to be my landlord. For the last time. So, can we lay this conversation to rest so that I can go back to searching for a place to keep the stuff that I don't have?"

Jax was leaning against his bike, smoking a cigarette down the filter. He had that smirk on his face that she had always associated with him making fun of her. He'd worn it a lot when they were kids. "I'm just saying, it's cheap and no one else is using it. I can't sell it for even a tenth of what I bought it for right now so there's no reason it's gotta sit here empty."

Emma turned to face him, all fire and spit, with her hands planted firmly on her hips. "That's nice and all but you're missing the point here and the point is that I will not be indebted to anyone. Ever… again," she stumbled over the last word, the corners of her lips turning down. She appreciated what Jax was trying to do but she wasn't helpless and thanks to her father she wasn't broke anymore either. True, living in the foster system and depending on the faux-family they set up with, never knowing where her next meal would come from, had made her frugal. She had a couple hundred thousand just sitting in a bank account but she knew that if she got stupid with it, it could all be gone in a blink.

She was tired of depending on other people to give her what she needed and that meant that even if the person doing the giving was someone like Jax Teller, trying to do right by her because of some loyalty to her father, she was going to turn it down. She needed to stand on her own two feet, finally. In the ways that mattered, all the ways that mattered and that included finding a place of her own and Jax's house was nice but it would never be hers.

"Emma, c'mon. It's not fucking charity, okay? I think you know that. You can pay me rent and utilities. Shit, if it'll bother you I won't even keep a key to the door. How about that?"

She glanced down at the clock on her new iPhone and chewed on her bottom lip. A nervous tick she'd picked up from when her bottom lip had sported two studs on either side of it. She'd gotten into the habit of chewing on the metal when she was nervous or upset or scared. Well, until one of her foster mother's had come at her with a pair of pliers and now all that was left was a little hard knot of scar tissue where her barbells had been.

"Jax," she sighed, exasperated. She was at the very end of her rope. She didn't know how many different ways she could explain to him that she wasn't going to live in his house; she wasn't going to take his fucking handout and like it. She wasn't his old lady, never would be and she wasn't going to let him lace her up like she was. Even though that thought brought a few of the old butterflies in the pit of her stomach back to life she squashed they could ever get off the ground. She'd been a fourteen year old kid, head over heels for Jax Teller once and it seemed as though old crushes died hard but that didn't mean she had to let them make her stupid.

And accepting Jax's offer would make her stupid.

She groaned, "I'm going to be late to the next showing." Yanking her phone out of the ridiculously tight pocket of her worn in blue jeans she swiped her thumb to unlock the screen. "I'm going to have to call and hope they can reschedule me."

Jax took one last puff off of his coffin nail and ground it out with the heel of his boot. "You're serious about not taking my offer?" he asked, swinging a leg over the seat of his bike and fixing her with that inscrutable stare again.

"I'm serious," Emma muttered. There was definitely a heat wave going through Charming because this summer was hotter than any of the other ones she could remember spending there. Sweat was pooling at the back of her neck and rolling down between her shoulder blades. She sighed again pulling her t-shirt away from her body. The fabric was starting to get sticky with sweat and all she wanted to do was settle on a place so that she could go back to the clubhouse and take a cold shower.

"Fine," Jax said, offering her the helmet again even though he knew she wouldn't take it. "Get on. I'll take you to see the next dump."

**xxx**

Emma hated to admit when she was wrong. She hated it even more when it meant admitting that Jax Teller was right. And right now, she had a feeling that she was going to have to admit that maybe he had been right.

They had seen three more rental homes within a few blocks of each other and each one had been worse than the last.

The first one had peeling wallpaper, something she could have easily fixed, but she wasn't so sure about the way the hardwood floors noticeably sloped down from the walls into a valley near the center of the room.

The second hadn't so much been a home as it had been a single room and bathroom over some guy's garage. Emma wasn't exactly the kind of girl that anyone could accuse of being fussy but she drew the line somewhere and when the 'landlord' had wandered out of the 'apartment's' bathroom with his pants around his ankles she'd practically beaten a path to the door with Jax in her wake, laughing like this was the goddamn circus.

The third one had been even worse still. No creepy landlord taking a shit in what would have been her bathroom, no sloping floors. In fact, one of the bedrooms didn't even have a floor. She stood hopelessly at the door to what was supposed to have been the master suite looking down at muddy dirt.

"Are you shitting me?" she asked, her mouth turning into a grim line. "Seriously?"

The real estate agent shrugged his shoulders, tugging at his tie in the stifling heat. "Well, the landlord would be willing to fix it, I'm sure. Put in a new floor, it'd be good as new. I'm told that the previous tenant was… um, using this room to grow some… plants."

Emma couldn't stop the smirk from spreading across her lips. "So, the last guy to live here was using it as a grow house?" She couldn't help but laugh. She had to, or she would cry. They had seen four houses already and each one had been an utter and complete disaster.

"That's what I was told…"

But even with a new floor this place was not what she was looking for. There was no refrigerator, the shower was a one by two box and rigged up with a cut off garden hose instead of a shower head.

And then there was the smell.

The smell that was even now, turning her stomach. It smelled like a frat house if the frat house were made up of a dozen male tom cats. Cat spray was a scent that if you smelled it once you wouldn't ever forget it.

And it smelled like the entire house was soaked in it.

Emma could vividly remember the stray cat that had hung around the Teller-Morrow garage when she'd been ten. All she'd wanted to do was pet and hold the kitty and she'd thought it was cute, at first, when the cat had wandered around, sniffing at her with his tail straight up in the air.

And then he had sprayed her.

Eight long baths later and that smell was just beginning to fade from her pores.

"Can we, maybe, head out onto the porch?" she asked, grimacing. She knew the smirk on Jax's face meant that she was going to hear about this for a long time to come.

It took her ten long minutes to convince the real estate agent that no, she didn't want to see any more houses today. After the last four she wasn't sure how they could get much worse but knew that whatever came after this one was not a house she wanted to step foot in.

"Sooo," he drew it out, like a breath and she was thankful that she was behind him, reluctantly putting on the helmet he'd offered her for the fiftieth time. From her vantage point she couldn't see the smug grin on his face and she was glad because it would have sent her teetering over the edge.

After a long day of traipsing through some of the most disgusting houses that Charming had to offer she wasn't sure if she could have handled one more 'I told you so' from Jax Teller.

"So, what?" she snapped. She was hungry, tired and really didn't want to deal with round two. Not right now. Not here, where she could still smell the cat urine clinging to her clothes.

"Sooo, have you thought about my offer some more?"

**xxx**

"What exactly are we doing here, Gem?" Luanne asked, taking another annoyingly loud slurp from her iced coffee. The two women were sweating against the leather of the bucket seats in Gemma's BMW. The car engine was off and even with all of the windows rolled down it was sticky and uncomfortably hot inside of the car.

"Waiting," Gemma said, her lips twisted into a grimace.

"For…?" Luanne pressed. She had always been down to ride shotgun with Gemma no matter what but this was starting to look like a wild goose chase and she wasn't even sure what she was supposed to be watching _for_. Gemma had been surprisingly tight lipped on the ride to Lodi and it had Luanne concerned. Gemma was more or less all bark and her mouth was usually the most dangerous thing on her. But when Gemma got quiet it usually meant that Luanne would be washing some poor fucks blood out from underneath of her fingernails later.

Gemma, when she was quiet, was more dangerous than Son.

"My son's soon to be ex," Gemma snarled, staring into the dark, smoky interior of the dive bar they were parked outside of, "The dumb cunt is claiming that she's knocked up. And as much as I want a grandbaby out of that boy I don't want it out of that nasty gash."

Luanne sighed, flicking a wisp of her blonde hair out of her face. She knew all about Wendy Case and the drama that trailed in her wake. She'd been sitting court at the clubhouse pretty as you please right up until news of Jax filing for divorce had gone public.

At least she'd had half the sense to get out of Charming and quick before she could suffer the added humiliation of Gemma running her out of town on a rail, something the mother charter's first old lady was more than capable and willing to do.

Just when Luanne was about to suggest that they head home and try to catch Wendy some other time, the dumb bitch stumbled out of the bar on the arm of some red neck who looked like he was pretty far from the cotton fields he called home.

Gemma's car door banged open before Luanne even had a chance to point the stupid bitch out to her best friend. Taking one last sip from her coffee she reluctantly stuck it back into the cup holder. She was getting way too old for this shit. Throwing punches was for the young girls and she and Gemma weren't going to be mistaken for twenty any time soon but Gemma had never been afraid to do her own dirty work when the situation called for it.

"Wow," Gemma sneered as Luanne caught up with her, her wide eyes and surprise over exaggerated to the point of being almost comical. "Look who it is!"

She enveloped Wendy in a tight hug before the younger girl could do the smart thing and haul ass for safer grounds. Pushing her back to arm's length, Gemma gave her the most sugary sweet grin she could muster. "We've been looking all over for you, honey. Jax told us all the good news and I can't tell you how excited I was to hear that you're giving me a little grandbaby!"

Luanne leaned back against the Beamer and watched Gemma work, ready to jump in if she needed to but happy to stand back just the same. Wendy's little flannel wearing piece had taken off the minute Gemma had said the word 'grandbaby' without looking back.

The younger woman watched him go with obvious disappointment in her eyes.

"Oh come on," Gemma said snidely once their audience was gone. "It's still early… it's only, what? Five? You've got plenty of time to find some more dick."

Her grip on Wendy was less gentle, more forceful as she steered her towards the Beamer. The younger woman planted her feet, trying to jerk her arm out of Gemma's grip and Luanne pushed herself off of the car and closed in on Gemma's soon-to-be ex-daughter-in-law. "C'mon, honey. Why don't you get in the car and we can all go shop for baby clothes."

In the back seat, Wendy looked like she'd been sucking on a lemon all day. Her face was drawn and tight, her mouth an uncomfortable pucker. "Let me go," she swore, "and I won't tell Jax. Right now. Let me go."

Gemma threw her head back and laughed, rolling up the windows and starting the car with a roar. "Honey, if you think Jax still gives a shit about you then that must be some good smack that you're on."

Luanne grabbed her iced coffee out of the console and sucked up the last remaining sips of watered down coffee. At least the air conditioning was on now, puffing out lukewarm air as it struggled against the oppressing heat. "Best just do whatever she tells you to, honey," she said, throwing a glance at Wendy in the rear view mirror. "It goes a lot easier that way."

She spoke from experience.

Gemma navigated the car to a gas station parked just outside of town. If Luanne hadn't known any better, she would have been certain that it was deserted. The whole place had a rundown look, like no one had been there in years.

"Luanne," Gemma said, tossing her a couple bucks. "Go get yourself another iced coffee and while you're in there, ask for the bathroom key will ya?"

The bathroom was damp and dirty and Luanne tread carefully. The last thing she wanted to do was accidentally touch anything in this mess. Gemma dug around in her black leather bag and pulled out a slim white box.

"Here," she said, thrusting it at Wendy. "I'm sure you know the drill."

Wendy's eyebrows shot up, "Seriously, Gemma?" she hissed, "You want me to piss on a stick? Right now? In front of you?"

Gemma peeled the box open and pulled out the pregnancy test, forcibly shoving it into Wendy's hand. "What does it look like?" she snarled. "You say you're knocked up with my grandchild? Well, burden of proof is on the accuser, baby. So piss on the stick. Now."

Wendy's cheeks flushed a bright red and as delicately as she could she crouched over the dirty toilet seat and after what seemed like hours, they could finally hear her piss splashing into the bowl. Wendy pulled the soaked stick out from under her skirt and held it up for Gemma to see.

**xxx**

Emma leaned back, her long dark brown hair swaying as she quickly bound it up in a messy bun. The heat wave hadn't broken yet and even though it was only eleven o'clock in the morning she was already covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

She still felt a little twinge of annoyance when she thought about moving into Jax's house and letting him be her landlord. She felt dependent on the club, on Jax, and that was the last thing she wanted. She'd tossed and turned all night with her decision but as much as she hated to admit it, Jax was right. Her options were slim unless she wanted to leave Charming again and she couldn't stand to break her father's heart like that.

Again.

She leaned down and grabbed a paint brush loaded with a beautiful aqua color that the guys at the hardware store had called Jamaican blue. She and the prospects had almost entirely finished painting and it had only taken a day and a half, they only had one wall left and then she'd need to let things dry for a day and she could start moving in.

Well, she could start buying a few things _to_ move in.

She could still boast that all of her worldly possessions could fit into one backpack. Emma hadn't quite adjusted yet to being able to go out and buy anything she wanted but at least now she could say that she had her very own toothbrush and shampoo.

"Juice!" she hollered towards one of the bedrooms where he and the other prospect were finishing the trim. "Can you bring me a soda? I'm dying in here!"

She would have gotten it herself but she was precariously perched at the top of a ladder, painting around the crown molding. Emma still hadn't gotten used to the prospects being at her beck and call. Jax had assured her that it was perfectly okay to run them like dogs but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She was pretty sure that this was the first time she'd asked either of them for something all day long.

She heard Juice grunt from the next room and it sounded like he was shuffling towards the cooler they had plopped on one of the kitchen counters, so she turned her attention back towards the wall in front of her.

When the front door slammed open, Emma almost dropped her paintbrush. Hell, the door slammed open so hard and unexpectedly, that she almost fell backwards off the ladder.

"Who the _hell_ are you?"

Emma recovered as gracefully as she could and glanced down. A blonde woman who she could only assume was Wendy Case was standing on the floor beneath her, hands on her hips and a nasty look on her face.

"Me? Who the hell are you?" Emma asked, casually. She twisted a little at the top of the ladder so that she wouldn't have to look over her shoulder at this bitch.

Wendy snorted, "I'm the bitch whose house you're in."

Juice was rounding the corner, a Mountain Dew in his hand but he skidded to a stop when he saw Wendy. "Umm, I got your soda, Emma," he stuttered, unsure of himself. He knew who Wendy was, didn't like her much and knew enough about the whole Jax and Wendy saga to know that the ex-gash showing up here and now probably wasn't good.

As casually as he could, he handed the can of soda up to Emma and before either woman could say something, he high tailed it back around the corner and disappeared into the spare bedroom where the other boy hoping to patch in was still painting, oblivious to whatever drama was happening in the living room.

"Shit, man," Juice hissed, "Are you deaf or just dumb? Call Jax, tell him that his ex is here."

"Here?" James asked, "Like, _here_ here."

"In the goddamn living room you, idiot. Call him. Now," Juice ran a hand over his mohawk. He knew he should get back out there, make sure Wendy didn't do anything stupid but honestly that living room was the last place he wanted to be when Jax Teller showed up.

Emma straddled the ladder, a smirk spreading across her lips. So this was the gash that had gotten Jax Teller to put a ring on it. She couldn't say that she was impressed. Wendy's hair was limp and scraggly down her back and underneath all of that make up, Emma could tell that her skin was absolutely ruined. She'd come to recognize the look in the foster system and usually just called it 'meth face'. Wendy was doing everything she could to hide it but it was obvious that her skin and teeth were rotting from all that shit she was putting into her body.

"Let me guess," Emma said, with her eyes wide with faux shock. "You're Wendy."

The blonde crossed her arms over her chest, "What the fuck are you doing to my house?" she seethed, "Where is all my shit."

Emma rolled her eyes, she'd had a feeling that eventually she would meet the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. Teller but she couldn't say that she'd thought it would be in the middle of her brand new living room while she was ten feet up on a ladder and there was a smudge of Jamaican blue pain on her cheek. "Let me break it down for you, sweetheart," she said, reaching the end of her patience level with Wendy. She'd already met her, shit; she'd met a dozen girls just like Wendy in the system and each and every one of them had annoyed the living shit out of her. "This is _my_ house. I'm renting it from Jax. Your shit is wherever he put it when he moved out. So turn your skank ass around and kick rocks because if you haven't noticed, I'm a little busy."

She was expecting a full on temper tantrum out of Wendy any time soon. Wendy's cheeks puffed up and her lips pushed out in a pout and Emma wouldn't have been surprised to see the older woman stomp her feet and pound on the floor with her fists.

What she wasn't expecting, though, was for Wendy to bum rush the ladder and throw her entire rail thin junky frame into it. Emma scrambled for something to hold on to as she felt the ladder going down. "Shit!" she hissed under her breath.

She made contact with the floor, hard, and felt her body slide across the hardwood floor until her shoulders made contact with the kitchen island. The commotion brought the prospects running.

"Fuck! Emma, are you okay?" Juice yelled as he skidded to a stop a foot away from her. He turned back to the other boy whose name Emma just could _not _remember to save her life, "Have you called Jax yet?" he demanded.

Emma was on her feet in a second, ignoring the pain. Compartmentalizing was something that the system was quick to teach. The less hurt and the less pain you allowed yourself to show the more intimidating you were to the other kids.

She'd learned that quick from a girl named Cierra. She'd thrown down with Emma just two days after she'd landed in the group home while she as waiting for the first in a long line of failed foster families. Emma couldn't remember what it had been over now; maybe some perceived breach of the unspoken foster kid etiquette. All she could remember was that Cierra had taken every right hook Emma had thrown at her like it was nothing. Like Emma hadn't even connected.

And it had scared the shit out of her.

The next time Emma had ended up back at the group home, she'd remembered that trick.

And she remembered it now.

Wendy's eyes were wide like she was just realizing what she had done.

"Bitch," Emma growled, "Let's get a couple things straight…" she was advancing on Wendy, her eyes spitting fire as she locked gazes with the older woman and held like it was a staring contest. "This is _my_ goddamn house. Bitches don't come into _my_ house and think they own this shit. So, why don't you let me show you the fucking door? Sorry you can't stay for some tea."

Wendy was backing up, stumbling over her too tall heels. "I-I—," she stuttered. "I'm pregnant."

Emma paused, for a split second, "That's nice," she said, "Is your face pregnant too?"

When Wendy looked confused, Emma pulled her fist back and let one of those famous right hooks that her father was so famous for fly. She connected with Wendy's face with a satisfying crunch and watched as the blonde crumbled to the ground as easily as if she had been made of paper.

Reaching down, Emma grabbed a hank of Wendy's dishwater blonde hair and hauled her back to her feet. Using her hair to steer her, Emma pushed her towards the door and didn't stop until Wendy had stumbled down the steps and on to the lawn.

"Goodbye," Emma said firmly, giving Wendy one last push and turning on her heel, she slammed the front door in the bitch's face.

Inside, the two prospects were staring at her like they had absolutely no clue what to do now. Emma sighed, ran a hand through her hair and looked at the mess where her paintbrush and the pan of paint she'd been working from were splattered all over the hardwood. There was paint in her hair, all over her clothes and she was starting to think that some of it had gotten into her nose because all she could smell was the thick, cloying smell of semi-gloss.

"Clean that up," she barked, gesturing with her chin towards the paint. "Please,' she added, almost as an afterthought. "I'm going to go and take a shower."

The prospects jumped to work, Juice grabbing a plastic mop bucket out of kitchen and filling it with a solution of warm water and soap suds. They'd just started scrubbing when the door flew open again and Jax stood there, wild eyed and on guard.

"Where is she?" he barked to the prospects that were on their hands and knees, blue soap suds from the paint half way up their arms.

"Emma… showed her out," James stuttered.

"Is she okay?" Jax sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, I think so," James said, scrubbing at a particularly difficult spot of paint. "Emma got her good in the face but that's it. Congratulations on becoming a dad, by the way. He was so enthusiastic that it hurt. James was eager, definitely, but Jax wasn't sure he was Son material. James was a little too clueless and the vice president wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to trust James to make decisions by himself.

Right now, though, James was just annoying the shit out of him.

"Not that bitch," Jax said, slowly, as though he speaking to a particularly stupid child, "I'm talking about Emma. Is _Emma_ okay?"

"Yeah, man, I think so," Juice said, leaving James to finish up the cleaning. "She's in the shower right now, scrubbing off this fucking paint. It got everywhere when Wendy knocked her off of the ladder."

Jax made a mental note to change the locks. It had taken enough of an uphill fight to convince Emma to move in in the first place and if his stupid, psycho ex kept showing up unannounced he was sure that she'd split first chance she had.

He hadn't even wanted to charge her rent but he could recognize that Emma was independent with a capital I. She wouldn't take it if she even remotely thought it might be a hand out. Her father would kill him if he thought for a second that the club wasn't taking care of his baby girl while he was locked up and the last thing Jax wanted was for Emma to move to Lodi or farther, outside of the reach of the club's protection.

He needed to make it clear to Wendy that she was to give this place a wide berth. It wasn't her home anymore.

Even if she was knocked up with his kid.

Leaving the prospects to finish cleaning up with orders to clear out once they were done, he knocked quietly on what had once been his bedroom door. "Ems?"

He could hear her shuffling around inside of the room and finally, "Come in, I guess."

When he opened the door, Emma stood there with only a towel wrapped around her slim body. Her paint covered jeans and tank top were in a heap on the floor on top of another drop cloth.

Her wet hair trailed down her bare shoulders and the small of her back and the brown bath towel ended six short inches below the curve of her hips. Jax's mouth suddenly went dry and he could feel his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.

_Stop it,_ he ordered himself. _This ain't no crow eater, it's Emma. Your brother's daughter. Get your eyes back in your head, Teller_.

When she turned to face him, though, his attention was drawn to an already swelling bruise on her shoulder, disappearing down into the towel. "Shit," he hissed, reaching out a hand to touch the bruising and stopping himself just before his fingers brushed her skin. "You okay?"

Emma nodded, nonchalant. "Had worse," she said, with her trademark smile, maybe meant to throw him off so that he wouldn't question how much worse she had had. "However," she said, glancing down at her towel covered body, "I'm not sure how I'm getting back in this get up. I didn't exactly anticipate getting creative with the paint today and there's nothing here for me to change into."

Jax swallowed hard, her words bringing his focus back on her still damp, naked-except-for-that-fucking-towel body. "I could head over to the clubhouse, if you want," he said, too casually, "Grab you something and bring it back. Just tell me where to look."

"Really?" Emma's face broke into a smile and for a minute Jax glimpsed the girl beneath the hard exterior. She didn't like to ask for help and maybe she didn't even know how, but she was grateful for his suggestion.

He realized, suddenly, that she was a girl who was used to having to do everything on her own. He hated that she had had to grow up outside of the warmth and protection of the club and her father. It couldn't have been easy.

"Yeah, it's no problem." _Emma's smile could knock a man's breath right out of his lungs_, he thought, when she turned that mega-watt grin on him again.

"Fantastic," she said, leaning over to grab her jeans and treating him to a full view of the towel inching higher and higher still towards her hips. He was almost disappointed when she stood back up and fished around in her pockets for the key to her room at the clubhouse. "All of my shit is in a black backpack next to the bed. Just bring me a pair of jeans and a shirt. Doesn't have to be fancy. Just enough that I can get back in without being mistaken for a particularly trashy croweater."

Jax smirked, palming the key, "No one could ever take you for a croweater, darlin'."


	5. Jim, Jack and Jose

**Authors Note:** A short one to keep you held over until after the holiday when I should have part six ready to go! Part six was technically supposed to be part of chapter five but it got so long that I broke it up a little bit to make it easier to read! And if you're so inclined, let me know what you loved and hated by leaving me a review. Reviews make a story better! XOXO.

**xxx**

Jax made it back to the clubhouse as quickly as he could. He knew Emma would be uncomfortable standing around in her towel, still dripping wet.

God, he really couldn't think about her in a towel dripping wet. It wasn't doing anything good for him. He also didn't want to think about the way he'd felt when the prospect had told him about Emma's swan dive off of the ladder. He'd felt a fear grip his gut that he probably shouldn't have been feeling. The way he had been thinking about Emma on the ride back was all kinds of wrong.

She was Connor's daughter, a Brother's daughter. Once, she had been like the kid sister he'd never wanted. The last time he'd seen her she'd been all elbows and knees, a mere shadow of the woman she would grow up to be in four short years. She was always underfoot and he remembered her as loud, outgoing and most of all, happy. She would talk to anyone about anything; the kid's mouth was always going a mile a minute.

The woman who had shown back up in Charming, though, was like the polar opposite of the girl who had left. She was quieter, she was harder and she seemed much older than her eighteen years. She had filled out too, curves in all the right places. He couldn't get the image of her the curve of her hips out of his mind.

He needed to get that image out of his mind.

This was not a road that he could go down. Not when a part of him still thought of her as that gangly fourteen year old kid and not when he knew that Connor would have him gutted should he so much as _think_ about laying a finger on that girl.

Shaking the images out of his head, Jax lit up a cigarette and palmed the key as he took the stairs up to the room Emma had been sleeping in. They didn't use the locks much around here because everyone trusted everyone else.

But, when he'd heard Emma dragging the dresser in front of her door that first day he'd gone out of his way to dig up a key to the lock. She obviously sorely needed the privacy, he had a feeling that she hadn't gotten a lot of that in the past few years.

The room was pretty spartan to begin with and even after a few weeks of living in it there was nothing except for the backpack that told him that anyone was even sleeping there. True, though, the room was much cleaner than it had probably ever been before.

Jax felt a little uncomfortable as her perched on the bed, reaching down for Emma's backpack. Even though she'd given him her permission it still felt strange to be going through her things. He unzipped it and realized that it wouldn't be a very difficult search. She still only had the two pairs of jeans to her name but had added a couple more tank tops.

Even here, she packed light. Like at a moment's notice she would need to wake up in the middle of the night and flee. The thought gave him a strange feeling, one that he couldn't really name. He wondered, not for the first time that day, what exactly Emma had been through.

Sighing, Jax grabbed a black tank top out of her bag but when he pulled it loose a handful of pictures fell out and onto the floor. Reaching down, he gathered them up. He hadn't been intending to look at them except that one of them had landed face up and it caught his attention because he was in the picture. It was a picture of the three of them, Opie and him and Emma, sitting on the picnic table outside of Teller-Morrow. It looked like it had been taken only a few months before Connor had gone inside so Emma must have been thirteen or fourteen which would have put him and Ope at eighteen or nineteen. They were all smiling broadly and both boys had their arms thrown around Emma's thin shoulders. The picture was crinkled, as though it had gone through a lot of abuse to stay with her.

Before Jax could stop himself, he was flipping through the rest of the images. Two more were pictures from right before Emma had been ripped away from them and put into the California state foster system. Another one, possibly taken the same day as the first image, was of Emma and her dad. It had to be the handiwork of his mother who was notorious for snapping photos when the people pictured didn't know they were being photographed. She swore she got her best shots from candids and had photo albums full at his childhood home.

This one had to be one of those because it was obvious that neither father nor daughter were expecting the shot. Connor had pulled Emma under his arm while he worked the grill and Emma was starting up at her father with such a look of adoration that it was easy to see that Connor was the most important thing in her world.

The third and final shot was a photograph of the patches and their motorcycles. None of them were smiling and they all looked years younger. It must be a pretty old picture that Emma had snagged from Connor. Her father had not been First Nine but he'd been pretty damn close, patching in just after Clay who had made up the last member of the original nine.

The other pictures in the stack were obviously taken after Emma had gone into the system. The first one was of a line of unsmiling children, all in their early teens. Emma was near the end, wearing a t-shirt that was three sizes too big for her. Judging by a poster on the wall behind the kids it was taken at a group home. Jax couldn't keep the frown off of his face, he hadn't been aware that Emma had spent time in a group home. For some reason he'd assumed they'd taken her directly to a foster home where she'd stayed until she came back to them.

Behind that picture was a shot of Emma, a blonde girl and a boy with a black mohawk. The three of them stared into the camera, unsmiling again, but the thing that really bothered him about this picture was the two faded bruises under Emma's eyes and the healing split lip.

Obviously, she hadn't been exaggerating when she'd said she had had worse than what Wendy had given her.

When he reached the last four pictures in the stack, he almost dropped them. They were clinical looking photos, taken of Emma against a white wall. They were the kind of pictures that cops take when someone has been assaulted, detailing every last bruise and cut.

One of Emma's eyes was swollen shut and the other was rimmed in a dark purple bruise. Must be the damage that had been fading in the picture he'd just looked at. There was blood on her chin from her split lip and a pair of bruises around her throat that reminded him too much of what it would like if someone had had their hands around her throat, choking the life out of her.

Jax's stomach turned and he gathered up the pictures, carefully putting those in the back of the pile. He debated for a few minutes but finally put the pictures back where he had found them.

The pictures that he had never been meant to see.

On his way downstairs he dug his prepay out of the pocket of his jeans. "Juice?" he said, when the prospect answered, "I need you to do me a favor. I need you to get me as much information as you can on Emma. From when she was in the system."

**xxx**

Emma was getting antsy by the time Jax had shown up with a pair of jeans and tank top for her. "Took you long enough," she teased, grabbing the bundle of clothes and disappearing into the bathroom.

"Sorry, you just had so much to choose from I couldn't decide what to bring you," he quipped. Thinking about the backpack though made him think about the pictures. He felt like there was a lot that had happened over the last four years that she hadn't told them about yet. But he wasn't sure it was his place to ask and he had a feeling that even if he did she wouldn't be forthcoming with the information anyway.

When Emma emerged a few seconds later, she was dressed and her long wet hair had been twisted up into a knot at the nape of her neck. "Think I can get a ride with you back home?" she asked, half-heartedly poking at her ruined jeans and tank. "I don't think there's much else I can do here today."

Jax nodded and she followed him out to the drive way. Jax's house—no, she had to start thinking about it as _her_ house if she were ever going to feel comfortable there—was only a few miles away from the clubhouse by bike. She figured that was probably one of the reasons that Jax had chosen it. It was small, only two bedrooms and a single bathroom, but it was perfect for her. There was small stretch of backyard with a little patio built onto the back of the house and best of all, there were only neighbors to one side of her.

She would be close enough to downtown to walk but far enough towards the outskirts of the small town that she could get some peace and quiet when she wanted to. Again, probably another reason that Jax had chosen it.

She would probably, at some point, though need to get a car. At the very least, a bicycle. The only downfall to the location was that if she wanted to get a job—and she did—then she needed reliable transportation.

Emma swung onto the back of Jax's dyna-glide and as usual, ignored his offer of a helmet. The ride back to the clubhouse was almost pleasant. She'd missed the feeling of the wind rushing past her face and the smell of warm leather as she clung to Jax's cut.

She was almost disappointed when they reached the clubhouse, she wouldn't have minded a longer ride. Climbing off, Emma shoved her hands in her pockets, "Thanks," she said, suddenly feeling more than a little awkward. "For the ride and the clothes and… everything."

Jax grinned, one of those rare, genuine smiles that she didn't often see on his face. The perpetual smirk, yes. The wolfish grin when he was trying to drop the panties off a croweater, yes. But the kind of grin she remembered from her childhood was rare. She hadn't seen it but once or twice since she'd been home.

"No problem," he said, still fixing her with that amazing grin. With another awkward smile, Emma disappeared into the clubhouse. _Get yourself the fuck together,_ Emma hissed at herself, inwardly cringing at the awkward, uncomfortable in her own skin teenager she'd just turned in to. Jax was not a road she needed to go down. It was dangerous to get close to someone and it was even more dangerous to get close to him.

Besides, he'd never seen her like that in the past and there was no reason to believe that he saw her that way now. None at all, except for her overactive imagination.

**xxx**

"Baby, we need to talk."

Jax's stomach sank. It was almost never a good thing when Gemma was still at the clubhouse this late instead of home, making dinner for the President.

She was sitting at the bar, a lit Virginia Slim in between two fingers and a double shot of bourbon in front of her. She patted the bar stool next to her and Jax sat down, reluctantly. "What's wrong, ma?"

Gemma took a hit off of her cigarette before answering. "Nothing good, baby. Luanne and I tracked down your ex-gash. I saw the piss stick with my own eyes and she's definitely knocked up."

Jax sighed, long and low, and ran a rough, work calloused hand over his face. "Jesus," he hissed. "What am I supposed to do with this, ma?" he asked, sounding more like the little boy she had raised for so many years than the man who sat in front of her now.

"I don't know, baby," Gemma sighed, taking another long drag off of her cigarette while Jax lit one of his own and reached behind the bar for a bottle of Jack Daniels. "This is a mess you got yourself into, baby and it's one you're gonna have to get yourself out of. But don't you let that junkie whore see a dime of your money until you have the results of that paternity test in your hand."

Jax nodded, reaching up to give his mother a kiss on the cheek as she stood to leave. "Baby," Gemma said, running a hand fondly over Jax's blonde head, "There's nothing to worry about before there's something to worry about, okay?"

Jax had to smile at her use of Big John Teller's favorite phrase. After his mother was gone, Jax put the bottle to his lips and took a long swig. The whiskey burned like fire all the way down his gut but it felt good. He took another swig. Big John had been a man of action but he was a man of calculated action. He didn't react; he didn't jump in head first. He tested the water first, thought about all his options. Big John was always a man who looked at the big picture first.

Not for the first time, Jax wished he could be more like his father. Because right now, he was terrified; the panic was setting in like a fist wrapped around his gut. He didn't want any other ties to Wendy than he already had: their failed marriage. And now, maybe, there was a kid on the way. Shit, Jax could barely take care of himself and now he had a baby on the way and it wasn't like that strung out junkie whore could take care of a kid herself.

No, that would fall on him.

And even though he knew the club and his mother would be there for him every step of the way this was not exactly something he'd planned. He didn't want a kid, especially not now. Not at twenty-three. Not at twenty-four either.

Another swig and the bottle was almost half empty. The burn felt good and Jax followed it up with another short sip. He was already feeling it, the fast gulps of liquor going straight to his head.

He'd made a lot of mistakes in his life and most of them he could look back and honestly say that he wouldn't change a damn thing. Every mistake, every wrong move he'd ever made had worked together to make him a man he hoped his father could be proud of. But the biggest mistake he'd ever made was ever hooking up with that crank slut in the first place. If he could he would go back and change that. He'd go back and change it in a second.

Tilting the bottle up again, he let the last of the fiery whiskey pour down his throat. His head was all over the place tonight because even in the midst of all of this self-pity, he couldn't stop thinking about Emma. The curve of her hips under that towel and the way she'd smiled up at him. She wasn't the little girl who had left Charming four years ago. Sometime during those years that Jax had barely noticed her absence she had grown into herself. Gone were the lanky arms and knobby knees of her girlhood and in their place there was a woman with a full mouth that made him think things he shouldn't be thinking.

Opening up another bottle, Jax took another swig and tried to get rid of those thoughts. They wouldn't do him any good. Emma was off limits, completely and totally untouchable and he had bigger things to worry about like the junkie who was currently calling him her baby daddy.

But he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit that he'd gone with Emma to look at all those dumps because he loved the feeling of her pressed against his back, arms wrapped around his waist and the hot press of her thighs as she leaned with him in the curves.

Jax took another long pull from the whiskey bottle, hoping to shake those images out of his mind. He didn't need to be thinking about Emma right now. He especially didn't need to be thinking about Emma like _that._

Stubbing out the remains of a cigarette, he twisted the cap back onto the whiskey bottle and got up. The booze hit him like a brick wall then, face first. He staggered towards the stairs and reached out for the railing. It was all he could do to pull himself up the stairs, using the railing so that he didn't end up chewing carpet.

Upstairs, he paused. Emma's bedroom light was still on but he could hear her deep, even breaths from inside as though she were asleep. He paused for a moment, hand hovering near the doorknob. He could knock. He could say that he just wanted to conserve electricity.

And she would call bullshit.

He knew that.

Emma was not a stupid girl, she was not the naïve child who had left her home behind her she was a street wise, suspicious woman who could be more like a wild animal backed into a corner. She was too smart to fall for that bullshit excuse. Besides, he had no business knocking on her door. He shouldn't feel the clench in his lower stomach when he thought about her in that towel.

Maybe it was just the booze, he thought. The alcohol was making things cloudy. He'd wake up in the morning and be horrified that he was standing here, outside her door, thinking about the way her body moved in that towel or the way her body felt pressed against his on the back of his Harley.

Shaking his head, Jax forced himself to keep walking.

**xxx**

Emma sighed, running the heel of her palms over her tired eyes. She should be asleep by now but something was keeping her awake. She was thinking about Wendy, of all fucking people. As Emma had advanced on her she'd told her that she was pregnant.

Presumably, she was knocked up with a Teller in there.

Emma sighed again, deeper and longer this time. She didn't know if she wanted to dig too deeply into why that bothered her. She didn't honestly want to acknowledge that her childhood crush on Jax Teller had started to worm its way back into her head after only a few weeks of being back home.

She'd thought that that stupid childish crush was something that she had left behind her in Charming. The foster system was too hard, too cruel for childish things. Those things were usually the first to be ripped away from you. Either by the other kids or just the harsh reality that there was no one left on earth that wanted you enough to save you from that.

But here she was, lying awake and staring blank eyed at the ceiling. Telling herself that she Wendy's impending bundle of joy bothered her only because she didn't want to see someone she knew and liked, respected even, saddled down with a psycho junkie like Wendy.

The woman had reeked of booze the minute she'd stumbled in the front door, of that Emma was certain. If she managed to actually carry this baby to term—and Emma was thinking that that was going to be a big _if_—it would be crank baby.

Women like Wendy couldn't escape that want—no, need—long enough to even think about staying clean for the life growing inside of them. She'd watched a foster sister, addicted to meth since she was thirteen, give birth to her second crank baby. The kid had been maybe the size of a coke can and hadn't made it longer than seventy-two hours.

She worried about what that would do to Jax.

Emma reminded herself, again, that she was worrying as a friend. A childhood friend, if you could call it that. Jax had been five years older than her and they definitely hadn't run in the same circles. If it weren't for the club they probably never would have met at all.

She was worrying about her friend, not pining away after a boy she had drooled over when she was thirteen years old.

Closing her eyes, Emma sank back into the pillows and flicked the light switch off.


	6. Let My Burden Be

**Authors Note: **Soooo, minor continuity fuck up. This story takes place around 1999. Obviously, there would not be iPhones, yet in the last few chapters I had Emma using one. Just… ignore that. I will at some point go back and polish that up and change a few things. But for now, ignore it. Sorry, guys! I'm a little rusty as I haven't written anything except for sci-fi for a while. So, about the updates. I'm trying to come up with a workable schedule so that no one has to guess when I'll update. But I'm working _and_ gearing up for school in August so forgive me if I slip up every once in a while. Right now I'm planning for a weekend update, for sure. Either Saturday or Sunday. If I can manage it, I'd like to work in an update sometime during the week. No promises on that yet. Otherwise, let me know what you're thinking about this here little story. Tell me what you hate, how the characters are coming out… like I said, I'm new to writing SOA fic and I'm still feeling out a few of the characters. Every little bit of input helps. Thanks so much for all the wonderful reviews, love it! XOX!

**xxx**

She should have known something was wrong by the way that sleazy piece of shit car salesman had been grinning at her the entire time. The proverbial cat eating the canary, so to speak. It should have clued her in that she was getting ready to buy the biggest piece of shit lemon in all of Lodi.

But it hadn't and now here she was, on the side of the interstate and there was smoke pouring out from under the hood of the car. Cursing under her breath, Emma climbed out and leaned against the hot metal of the driver's side door. Traffic whizzed past her, shaking the car's frame and blowing hot hair against her back.

That bastard was lucky that she was halfway to Charming because her first instinct was to walk back to Lodi and break her foot off in his ass. She should have known better and maybe she shouldn't have been so hasty to throw down money on a used car but she'd always been a sucker for a classic cage. And when she'd seen the 1963 Mercury Comet tucked into some tall grass at the back of the lot it had been love at first sight. Sure, it needed some work… there was rust on the tire wells and the soft top was ripped to hell but it was a gorgeous hunk of metal.

She'd been stupid to buy it though, stupider still to take the bus to Lodi and come back with a car without taking anyone who knew something about cars with her. Hell, she had a whole garage full of mechanics outside her bedroom window but her stubborn need to do everything for herself had kept her from asking Jax or Opie to go up to Lodi with her.

She'd known that either one of them would have said yes in a heartbeat but her stupid pride had gotten in the way and now what?

Digging into the pocket of her jeans, Emma yanked out her cell phone and angrily punched in the number to the garage. The last thing she wanted to do was see one of their smirking faces when they came to get her with the flatbed but she was out of options. This car wasn't making it another foot let alone the half hour back to Charming.

"Yeah?"

When Piney's gruff voice answered, she could have cried with happiness. As long as it wasn't Thing One or Thing Two, which had been her nickname for Ope and Jax for as long as she could remember.

When they hung up, Emma breathed a sigh of relief and climbed back into the car to wait. Piney had said it would take him maybe forty-five minutes to get out to her with traffic. She was relieved that the old man was coming and not one of the prospects. She was fairly certain she could convince the old man not to blab about her ill-fated decision to Jax or Opie. If he did, she would never hear the end of it.

They'd be old and gray and they'd still be teasing her about the time she went into Lodi and spent a stupid amount of money on a piece of shit hunk of metal. Running her fingertips along the steering wheel, Emma sighed. "It's okay," she murmured soothingly to the car, "I still love you, baby. You're just making a hell of a first impression, huh?"

True to his word, Piney rolled up in the flatbed, stalling traffic as he maneuvered the big truck to get in front of her. The old man climbed out of the driver's seat and let out a low whistle.

"Well, Emma girl," he said, barely hiding a laugh. "When you jack shit up you _really_ jack shit up. What is this thing anyway?"

Emma scowled, shoving her hands in her pockets and shouting to be heard over the roar of the traffic. "For your information," she retorted. "This piece of shit is a classic."

Piney rolled his eyes, pulling down the rigging to hook it up underneath of the car. "Yeah, it's a classic alright," he quipped, "A classic paper weight from the looks of things. You still remember how to do this?" he asked, gesturing with his chin to the chains and hooks that he needed to attach to the car's undercarriage.

"I've been in the system, pops. Not in a coma." Emma reached out and grabbed the chains from him, shimmying underneath of her car and hooking them up where they were supposed to go. Once she had everything on there tight she climbed back out and Piney let the truck do the work, cranking the chain that was as thick as Emma's wrist until, groaning, it heaved the heavy Comet onto the back of the flatbed.

Once they were back on the road, Piney reached into the inner pocket of his faded out denim kutte and pulled out a small, silver flask. He took a swig and passed it to Emma. "Looked like you could use it after the morning you've had," he teased.

Emma nodded gratefully and took a long swallow. The whiskey burned like fire down her throat but it almost instantly eased her tension.

"Look," she said, taking one more pull before she handed the flask back to Piney. "I was kind of hoping that we could keep this between you and me."

Piney nodded, taking another sip from his flask and putting it away one handed. "Light me up a cigarette, will you kid?"

Emma fished his smokes out of the glove box and lit two, one for herself and one for him. "These things will kill ya, you know?"

"Something's got to," was the old man's reply. He took a long pull and winked at her, "Can't live forever, kid."

They rode in silence for a few minutes, Emma savoring the way the nicotine hit her system. Fast and hard, working in a silent one-two punch with the whiskey to leave her feeling relaxed and a little light headed.

"You been to see your daddy?" Piney asked, cutting her a sideways glance. He knew she had but this was Piney's way of asking her how things had gone without coming right out and asking. The old man was good at shit like that. He'd weasel shit right out of her before she'd even realize what she was saying. She found, these days, that she didn't respond too well to direct questions. They felt less like concern and more like prying. But Piney's sideways, half statements half questions put her at ease.

"Yeah, couple weeks ago."

"What'd he have to say?" Piney put on his blinker and merged a few lengths over, the Comet bobbing along behind the large truck. "Stockton treating him good? Put him up in some five star hotel accommodations?"

Emma joined in with Piney's laughter. They both knew that Stockton was one of the shittiest prisons in the district. They were underfunded and understaffed and the only ones who really suffered were men like her father. "Yeah, turn down service and everything," Emma quipped. "He said they even leave those tiny little mints on his pillow."

Silence was companionable with Piney, comfortable. With anyone else there might have been that awkward, uncomfortable urge to fill up the silence with idle chatter. But here, the lapses in silence were like slipping underneath of a warm blanket. They felt safe and comfortable.

"You know," Piney said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. "Your daddy is real curious about them bruises on your face you had when you first strolled back in like the Queen of fucking Sheba."

Emma shrugged, staring off at the line of cars speeding past them to her right. She'd known her dad would be curious. She'd also—as much as she hated to admit it—banked on his fear of her running off again. He'd take what she said at face value for now because she held all the cards. She didn't like doing that to her old man but she was hoping he'd have the possibility of parole sometime in her lifetime. If he put a hit out on her scumbag foster father she knew she'd probably never see him again.

"I told him shit got handled," she replied, a little gruffer than she'd intended to be. She felt like a wounded animal sometimes, snarling and taking swipes at the hands that were trying to help her. Preferring to suffer in silence and lick her own wounds clean.

"Yeah," Piney drew out the word, taking another hit off of his smoldering cigarette before giving her another sideways glance. "Between you and me and the fence post, though… what happened to you, sweetheart? You left outta here a sweet little girl and not that we ain't happy to have you home, cause we are, but you've changed. Some ways for the good, some ways for the bad."

She scrunched down into the passenger seat, rubbing the bridge of her nose absently. "My foster father tried to rape me," she said, bluntly. Something inside of her just couldn't keep that shit to herself anymore. It had been sitting there, festering, for close to a month now and she just couldn't stop the words from bubbling out of her mouth.

"Tried?" the old man asked. He seemed to realize that if he reacted with anything other than a controlled, passive response she would shut down. The girl had been running herself ragged trying to escape her demons but Piney knew from experience that you can only run from 'em for so long by yourself. Eventually, you need someone else to take over for a little while.

But inside, he was seething. Like most all of them, Piney saw the scared little girl pressed up in the back glass of that social service bitch's rear window when he looked at her. He'd always felt a little protective of the kid. Connor had been like another son to him and he'd sponsored him when Connor had wanted to patch.

He'd only sponsored one other man before and that had been his own son. He made good choices and Connor had been more than an asset to the club. Although, Piney couldn't help but take some guilt onto himself when he thought about the situation with Emma.

In his old age he was starting to carry more and more of it.

If he'd never sponsored Connor, suggested he prospect, then he never would have gone down for the club and his little girl never would have wound up the property of the state of California. But what ifs and wishes could only get him so far. Like his father before him used to say: spit in one hand and wish in the other. See which one gets filled up faster.

"Yeah," Emma said finally, "Tried. Didn't succeed. I stabbed him. In the throat."

Piney had to laugh at that. "You are your father's daughter."

Emma grinned and pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes. She'd grown up in the shadow of Connor Reid, a man who was taller than God in her eyes. That was probably the best compliment that the old man could have given her. And it had worked in ways that she didn't understand to keep her from falling down into that dark place when she thought about the things that lead up to her coming home with only the clothes on her back and a few pictures to remember the last four years by.

"Yeah," she said, "Maybe. Had to leave pretty quick after that."

He wouldn't be the man who had helped found an empire, a family, a life if he didn't ask the next question, "This man you left behind, you kill him?"

Emma's smile faded and she felt sucker punched in the gut, "I don't know," she said, honestly. "I left before I could find out. I didn't know what else to do."

Piney offered her a kind smile, "What I'm asking you, darling, is if there's gonna be any blow back on the club with you here and a man who's maybe dead behind you."

Clenching her fingers together tight in her lap, Emma shrugged her shoulders and let her hair fall over her face. That was something she'd never thought about. She'd never thought about how in coming home she might just be bringing back a trail of shit to dump all over the club and Charming with her own past.

Not for the first time, Emma was seriously beginning to think that maybe she should have got on that bus and kept going. Maybe it was the worst decision she could have made coming back home to Charming.

"Don't know," she said, finally. It came out more of a mumble that she'd expected and Piney glanced over at her, giving her knee a squeeze.

"Just askin' so we can be prepared, honey. Don't think we're gonna leave you high and dry if this shit blows up. You're family, Emma girl. We do for family. We _always_ do for family."

Emma nodded but she didn't feel any more confident in her decision to come home. Piney had had a point; if that man had died then they were looking for her. She wondered if she could get the prospect, the one that was so good with computers and all that shit, to take a look for her. But she also knew she couldn't put him in that position. Anything he found he'd be obligated to take back to the club, even if she asked him not to. But he seemed like a good guy and she knew that would be a hard decision for him to make.

No, she couldn't put Juice in that spot.

If that asshole had bled out, though, she was a fugitive.

A criminal.

No way in hell would anyone buy that it was self-defense. He was careful, she knew, and she'd never heard about him through word of mouth. Foster kids had a pretty good network going on, word passed quick which families you never wanted to be shipped off to and which ones were okay. Which families would send you to bed hungry and which ones would keep enough food in the house so that you wouldn't starve to death.

They also passed around which foster daddies couldn't keep it in their pants and which foster mommies looked the other way.

She'd never heard anything about this douchebag.

"I never saw it coming," she said, once she started she found that she couldn't stop talking. Everything poured out of her, rushing like a river. "He seemed alright even if he was a little grabby; I'd never heard nothin' about him. Word got around fast which homes you needed to get yourself tossed out of quick. But I never heard anything about this family. He was smart too, too fucking smart. He waited until the day I turned eighteen because he knew the law got grey when it came to two adults."

Piney sighed and squeezed her knee again. He wasn't going to stop the girl if she needed to get this out. As much as the idea of a grown man putting hands on a little girl made his blood boil, if she needed to say it then he'd grit his teeth and listen to it.

When she was done, tears wet on her face, Piney handed her the bandana he kept tucked in his pocket. "Emma girl," he said, softly, "If you need someone to tell your secrets to you come to me. But don't you go to your daddy with this," he said. "It'll kill him. And if that son of a bitch ain't already dead your daddy will kill him all over again. They'll send him back to jail with no hope of seeing the light of day again."

He felt a sick tugging in his soul when he told Connor Reid's only daughter—his baby girl—that she needed to keep secrets from the man who had raised her. But they both knew Connor's temper was notorious and he was legend for putting lead in a man without stopping to ask any questions.

This would send him over the top.

They'd throw him back in and then lose the key. And if he knew anything it was that this girl needed her dad free and clear, not behind bars. Connor was already facing a sentence that would be a death sentence for most men but overcrowding and his good behavior had put him up for parole. He just had to make it past the parole board and Piney had high hopes that with Emma back in town they'd take that into consideration.

They'd be releasing him to family.

Emma nodded, drying her tears and handing the bandana back to him. He knew that Emma would do whatever it took to keep this horrible secret away from her father and Piney knew that he would carry the guilt of asking her to do that to his grave.

**xxx**

Back at the garage, Piney snagged the Prospect and Lowell Sr. to pull the Comet down off of the flatbed while he got himself a drink.

His boy was sitting at the bar and for a moment, if he squinted his eyes and let memory take hold, Piney could have sworn it could have been him many, many moons ago. Once, he'd been as tall as Opie was but age had worn him down until his son towered over him.

Shaking his head, Piney thought about how he must be getting senile in his old age. He'd been spending too many afternoons walking down memory lane. They might as well just go ahead and put him in a home, he was acting like a doddering old fool.

"Hey, Ems. Heard you got yourself a cage," Opie said when Emma sat down next to him.

"I don't wanna talk about it," she scowled. Apparently there was no hope in keeping things quiet around this place. She should have remembered that. It was stupid that she hadn't.

Opie smirked and took a last hit off of his burned down Marlboro. "I'll take a look at it when we get back if you want me to."

Opie had always been Jax's polar opposite. Where Jax was loud and outgoing, boisterous and rash; Opie was quiet, gentle and methodical. They'd take the club amazing places one day with Jax president and Opie his VP. They were a good team, she thought. Jax would make the moves and Opie would make sure they could back them up.

"Thanks, Ope," she said, grinning up at him. Even sitting he towered over her. "If you get a chance that would be great."

He nodded and said in that quiet way of his, "You met my girl Donna yet?"

Emma racked her brain, trying to place Donna. She had met so many people her first night back at Charming. Of course Gemma, Charming's own one woman welcome wagon, had rolled out an impromptu party. But that night, so much had been running through Emma's head and she'd met so many people that she couldn't keep a single one of them straight.

"I don't think so," she said, still trying to remember if she'd seen Opie with a woman at the party. She couldn't, though. All she could remember from that party was Jax.

Opie nodded, a slow smile curving his lips. It was a rare thing; Opie was usually quiet, stoic. The smile was something that Emma could count on one hand how many times she'd seen it. "I'd like you to meet her, Ems. I think you'd really like her."

She and Opie had always been closer than she and Jax had been. He had truly been like the big brother she had never had. When she'd gone on her first date, just a group trip to the mall, at thirteen it had been Opie who had refused to let her go until the guy had come and knocked on the door and introduced himself. Opie was a silent, scowling mountain behind her while the boy had shook her father's hand.

Between the two of them, that kid had never so much as said hi to her in the hallway after that night. She didn't get asked out on dates much after that, supposed the guy would have had to have some brass fucking balls to try to date Emma Reid, Samcro's only daughter.

Guess most of them figured that there were a whole passel of rough, angry bikers waiting in the wings to rip their balls right off if they hurt her. With a soft laugh, she realized that they were probably right.

She had missed both Opie and Jax but she would be lying if she didn't admit that she had missed Opie just a little bit more. He hadn't been quite as preoccupied with staying knee deep in pussy like Jax had. He'd been happy to teach her how to play pool and throw her his old notes from high school. She'd never tell him that they hadn't helped that much. Neither he nor Jax had been honor students in high school.

Opie stood up, tugged on the shoulder holster to adjust it and swung his kutte on. "Alright, kid," he said, ruffling her hair just as he'd used to do when she actually _was_ a kid. "Gotta head out. Keep out of trouble if you can."

After Opie was gone, Emma reached behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of Jameson whiskey and took a swig. She'd picked up a taste for it, probably from her father. She took another small sip and screwed the lid back on. The liquid burned her chest and it had been just what she'd needed to settle her nerves after today.

Opie had left an almost empty pack of Pall Malls on the table, probably thinking it was an empty, but she spied the filter of one last cigarette peeking out through the crumbled packaging. Grinning, she snaked the smoke out and dug in her pockets for a lighter.

Sure, she had the cash now to pay for her own bad habits but she still wasn't going to turn down a free cigarette if the opportunity presented itself. Taking a long, sweet drag off of the cigarette she smiled. It went a long way to calm the rest of her frazzled nerves.

The car was pissing her off more than she wanted to admit. She tried so hard to do for herself; to be independent. She didn't want to rely on the guys or Gemma or even her father any more than she already had to. It meant a lot for her to be able to handle her shit all by herself.

And so she had and she'd failed. Miserably. The car was a piece of shit. A gorgeous, vintage piece of shit.

Sighing, Emma smoked the cigarette down to the filter, so preoccupied that she didn't even notice until she burnt her fingers on the smoldering ash. Grinding the cigarette out in the ash tray, she nodded to Piney who was sitting at one of the tables nursing a scotch, and headed upstairs.

She needed to crunch some numbers and figure out how much repairing that piece of shit would cost her.

Turning a corner, she found herself face to chest with a wall of thick muscle. Glancing up, Emma fought the smile that threatened to tug at the corner of her lips. Jax stood in front of her with that shit eating grin on his face. She really couldn't handle _that_ smile right now.

"Lot on your mind, darlin'?" he asked and she watched some bleach blonde croweater creep out of his room. Emma rolled her eyes and sidestepped him.

"Don't wanna talk about it," she muttered. Jesus, word got around quick here. She knew he was just dying to tease her about the piece of junk she'd bought.

"You sure?" he asked, "Heard you spent an hour or two on the side of the highway this afternoon."

The croweater ducked around Emma to reach the stairs; she smelled like weed and pussy. Emma raised an eyebrow at Jax as the woman scampered down the stairs, cutting Emma a wide berth.

"What?" Jax asked, that smirk still on his face.

"Nothing, nothing," Emma said, raising her hands. "Gonna find my baby, gone hold her tight," she sang softly, "Gonna grab some afternoon delight."

That wiped the smirk off of his face for a minute and she could have sworn she saw a faint flush spread up his neck as he ducked around her and down the stairs.

Now that she finally had the upper hand, Emma wasn't about to let it go. She could count on one hand the amount of times in her life that she had managed to best Jackson Teller. "My motto's always been; when its right, it's right," she sang, getting a little louder, "Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night. When everything's a little clearer in the light of day. And you know the night is always gonna be there any way."

Jax beat a path to the front door and she could have sworn he had his tail between his legs. Following him, Emma sang at the top of her lungs as she leaned out of the door. "Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight!"

The roar of his motorcycle's engine cut her off before she could finish the song and she watched as Jax and Opie sped away. She could have sworn she could hear Opie's baritone laughter over the din.

Turning, Emma made her way back upstairs and into the relative peace and quiet of her bedroom. She ignored that gnawing feeling at the pit of stomach. Because truth be told, she'd felt a little disappointed when she'd seen that blonde head poke out of Jax's room.

_Stop it, _she chastised herself. _You are __**not**__ still harboring some stupid little girl crush on that guy. _

She wasn't going to lie, the proximately to Jax had brought back some feelings she'd hoped were dead and gone. She was not going to be that same little girl, panting after Jax Teller and hoping against hope that he would notice her all the while terrified that he would notice her.

She remembered the ridiculous journal entries she had written out in her careful school-taught cursive. _Saw Jax today, he smiled. I smiled back. I felt like I was going to throw up._

God, she hoped no one had gone through her shit when she was gone. Suddenly, with a pang, she realized that she had no idea what had happened to all their shit when her dad had gone inside and sold the house.

She made a mental note to ask him the next time that she went to visit.

Or, on second thought, if anyone knew it would probably be Gemma.

When she passed through, Piney was still chuckling over his glass of scotch. She gave the old man a wink before she stepped back out into the hot afternoon sunlight. Gemma was right where Emma suspected that she would be, in the office elbow deep in paperwork.

"Need some help?" Emma asked, poking her head in. The office was cool but only about five or ten degrees cooler than it was outside. The little window unit air conditioner was working overtime and she could hear it's grumbling over the soft classic rock that Gemma had playing on the radio.

Gemma looked up with a smile, "Sure, baby. If you want to." Moving some file folders off of a folding chair, she gestured to three tall filing cabinets set side by side. "If you could move everything from those first two cabinets into these boxes…"

Emma pulled the chair up and got to work, "Hey, I've been meaning to ask you something, Mama G," she said, falling back into the nickname she'd had for Gemma since she had been a little girl.

"What's that, baby?" Gemma was distracted, her pencil scratching away at a form she was filling out. Probably some tax stuff. They paid taxes on the income from T-M, a way to try to keep it legal. Emma knew that more than one club had been brought down for tax evasion. The pigs at the ATF were always looking for some way to bring down a club and if they could nail them for tax evasion, well—in for a penny, in for a pound.

"Do you know what happened to all our stuff when my dad sold the house?" God, she desperately hoped that no one had read her stupid, whiney journals. But aside from those, there were things she would love to have back, mementos from her mother and maybe some of the furniture if it hadn't all been sold off. It sure would help since as of right now she had a whole lot of nothing to fill up that nice house Jax was renting out to her.

Gemma looked surprised, "Your daddy didn't tell you?"

"No," she said, pulling a stack of dusty file folders out of the bottom drawer of one of the cabinets "We had a lot of shit to talk about when I was there. Didn't get around to it."

Gemma turned, fished around in one of the desk drawers and pulled out a key. "The club packed up everything and put it all in one of those storage buildings behind the garage."

She tossed the key into Emma's lap and fanned her face where a slight sheen of sweat had broken out. "Now, is that why you came in here? Not because you wanted to help me pack up a bunch of dusty old files?" the older woman teased.

A soft pink flush spread across Emma's cheeks but she nodded.

"Figured as much. Go on, then. Get out of here and see if you find anything good. If you want any of that furniture yell at Piney and if he's not piss drunk he can drive it over to Jax's on the flatbed. Anything else just leave it in there and when your daddy gets out he can pick through it."

Emma didn't have to be told twice, she high tailed it out of the office and cut a path towards the storage buildings. She knew them well, she'd once gotten locked inside during an ill-fated game of hide and go seek that she'd talked Jax and Opie into playing with her when she had been a little girl.

Of course, them being teenage boys and all, they promptly forgot about her. Her daddy had done everything but wring them by their necks when they finally got home from the mall or the movies or wherever they had been and remembered her. By then, of course, everyone had been looking for her for hours. Clay had called Unser and he had had every deputy in the precinct out looking for the club's little girl.

She, of course, had fallen asleep curled up on an old blanket she'd found in there once she'd gotten over being terrified of spiders and tired of banging on the door and yelling for them to let her out.

She had to smirk when she remembered the nasty looks Jax had shot her all summer long after Gemma and Piney had grounded both of their asses until school started up again.

The door creaked open with a groan and a wave of nostalgia hit Emma right in the gut. Her whole childhood was here, laid out in this room. The furniture was carefully wrapped up in plastic and drop clothes, a Gemma touch to be sure. But she could still make out its familiar shapes.

Gemma, of course, had picked out everything her father had furnished their home with. The poor man had barely gotten by raising a daughter and he had no idea how to furnish a house. His idea of haute couture had been a couple folding chairs and some milk crates for end tables. Gemma had put the kibosh on that right quick.

The couches were plush and the end tables real wood, solid and strong. Immediately, she knew what she wanted to take and was getting ready to head back to the clubhouse to catch Piney before he was well and truly shitfaced when she saw the box.

It was half opened and the contents spilled out like it had been waiting for her to find it. There was a rag doll with bright pink hair that she had named Na-na and underneath that, a bundle of letters that her mother had written her when she had been sick. She'd started the first one when she'd gotten the cancer diagnosis and had kept writing right up until a few weeks before she'd died.

Crouching down on the dusty concrete, Emma tugged them free of the box and opened one up. The paper felt a little more brittle now, it was a little more yellowed than Emma remembered it but when she saw her mother's handwriting she gasped.

It was like a blow to the chest, right in the sternum. It knocked the air out of her for a minute, leaving her gasping like a fish on land.

And for the first time in a very long time, Emma broke down sobbing. She'd cried that first day that her daddy had gone inside. Cried when they'd ripped her away from the only family she'd ever known.

But she'd never cried, not once, since that day.

And here she was, covered in dust, crying into letters written by a woman who had been dead for over a decade. But deep down, she knew she was crying for more than that. More than a mother who hadn't had a chance to raise her she was crying for a father who had missed the shit out of his baby girl for the last four years. She was crying for herself, too, if she wanted to get really honest. She was crying for a girl who hadn't gotten to finish being a child before she'd been thrown to the wolves, so to speak.

And that was where Gemma found her, crying her fucking eyes out in the middle of all this furniture wrapped up in plastic.

"Oh baby," Gemma murmured, crouching down beside the girl. She tugged Emma into her arms and held her with tight arms until Emma's shoulders stopped shaking.


	7. A Cautionary Song

**Authors Note: **To be honest with you, this isn't exactly how I thought this chapter was going to go. Emma, however, had other ideas. Let me know what you think and if you think Jonny should stick around or kick rocks. XOXO.

**xxx**

"What are you doing, man?"

Jax glanced over, looking up through a curtain of blonde hair at his best friend. Opie was fiddling with a cigarette, twirling it around and around between his fingers. Opie only ever fidgeted when he had something to say that he didn't want to say. It immediately put Jax's hackles up and he found himself getting defensive.

"What do you mean?" he asked, gesturing towards his bike and the saddlebag that he was unstrapping from the back. "I'm getting my shit." Inwardly groaning, Jax glanced down at his pre-pay to check the time. _Please,_ he thought, _Whatever he wants to say… can't he just say it in the morning?_ They'd been riding most of the afternoon and night and Jax's whole body ached. He craved a cigarette so bad that his throat ached for it and he was definitely _not_ in the mood for whatever Ope wanted to talk about.

Opie leaned back, stuck the smoke in the corner of his mouth and lit it. "That's not what I'm talking about. You know that."

Unser's guy had pulled his truck over into the parking lot of a shitty little motel halfway to Tacoma and had already bedded down in the truck's cab. The plan was for Jax and Opie to grab a room and try to get a couple hours of sleep before they were back on the road. Even though the room was sure to be filthy and he'd probably rather sleep in Tig's bed than on the motel bed sheets, all Jax wanted was a hot shower and somewhere to stretch out and sooth the muscles that were screaming from riding hard for almost twelve full hours.

"Then whatthe fuck _are_ you talking about?" Jax demanded, straightening up and lighting up his own cigarette. He didn't know what Opie was getting at, wasn't sure if he even cared. Since Opie had gotten tangled up with Donna he'd been hard pressed to find time for his best friend. Jax wasn't about to admit it out loud but he found himself a little resentful every so often. He told himself it was because he missed his best friend but he'd be lying if he didn't admit that it was also because some part of him envied what Opie had: a good woman to hold him down and an old lady to come home to after a long run like this one. Once, he'd thought that Tara could be that woman but it had turned out that the life he led was a life that scared the shit out of her. The more she learned about the club the less she wanted to know and it had driven a wedge in their relationship that nothing could fix.

Wendy most certainly hadn't been that woman but he'd known that going in. He just hadn't cared. She was something to distract him, something to keep his dick warm. She'd never been old lady material and he knew now that marrying her had been the worst decision he'd ever made. Shit, fucking her had been the worst decision he'd ever made.

"You're a fucking mess, man," Opie said, staring up at the sky and choosing his words carefully. If he did it right, Jax would listen to him. If he did it wrong, he might just find himself brawling with his best friend in this parking lot. "That fucking crank whore, Wendy, for starters. How about that? You're running through croweaters like water and I thought my dad was the only one who started his day with whiskey instead of coffee. Who the fuck are you becoming, man?"

Jax took a hard, deep pull on his cigarette. His eyes narrowed and he pulled himself up a little straighter. "What the fuck are you talking about, man?" His voice was hard, dangerous. He wanted to throw a punch but instead he balled his hands up and stuffed them down into his pockets. As much as he wanted to walk away, cursing over his shoulder, the worst part was recognizing the truth in his friend's words.

"I'm talking about _you_," Opie sighed, frustrated. Why couldn't Jax see what he was doing to himself and more importantly, the club? He was up until dawn most nights, tired as shit when he came to the redwood and he was getting sloppy. Opie couldn't even count on one hand how many times he'd had to bail Jax's ass out with Clay these past two years. He was a fucking train wreck and the worst part was he didn't even see it. "I'm talking about this… downward spiral you're in, man. You're a fucking wreck and I'm tired of bailing your ass out. I'm tired of covering for you with Clay. You're going to get yourself killed or even worse, man, you're gonna get one of your brothers killed."

He opened his mouth to respond, his eyes spitting fire, but Opie cut him off, "Just… pull your head out of your ass and get your shit together, man. Because I'm done. I'm done putting myself in harm's way to save your ass. I've got more than just me to think about here. I've got Donna and…" he trailed off, running a palm down his face. "Nevermind, man. Just… get your shit together."

When Opie was gone, stubbing out his cigarette and stomping towards the motel's dimly lit office, Jax stayed behind. When he'd smoked the first cigarette down to a nub he lit another off of the cherry of the last.

The worst part was that he could see the truth in Opie's words. He _was_ a mess, he _had_ gotten sloppy. His whole future was at risk here. Clay was his stepfather but Clay would always be his president first. And if he got sloppy enough to get a brother locked up, hurt or worse he knew he'd be patched out in the most painful way Clay could think of. Just thinking about the patching out made the skin beneath his reaper back piece itch. He'd never witnessed a patch out but he'd heard about plenty of them from the older guys. The choice: fire or knife— he shook his head, tried not to think about it.

Jax sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, and slumped down next to his Dyna-Glide. He needed to get his shit together but he didn't know how to do that when his entire fucking world was crumbling in front of his face. Wendy was knocked up, for sure. His mom had made her piss on a stick right in front of her. There was a baby on its way and he didn't know whether or not he should believe it was his but with a sinking feeling he realized that he knew it was.

A baby would mean that he wouldn't ever be able to get rid of Wendy fuckin' Case. She would, in some way, be tangled up in his life forever.

It was a little after two in the morning when Jax finally stumbled into his room, collapsing on the bed almost before he'd even shrugged out of his kutte. He lay there for a few moments, fighting sleep, with Opie's words still echoing in his head. Everything was spiraling out of control and there he was, completely powerless to stop it. But even in the middle of it all, he couldn't stop thinking about Emma. Juice had told him it would probably be a few more weeks before he had anything on the years that she had spent in foster care but he couldn't get the way she looked in those pictures out of his head. She had looked small and scared, yeah, but somewhere beneath all that had there was pure steel. She'd had the shit beaten out of her and there she was, still staring into the camera with a look on her face that he couldn't quite place.

Thinking about Emma, though, was dangerous. Because no matter what lies he told himself about why he was so preoccupied with her lately, there was always that little voice in the back of his head reminding him of what she'd looked like in that towel. The smile that could light up her face, reaching all the way to her eyes, that was so elusive. The way her arms felt wrapped around him when she was on the back of his bike. It was dangerous to think about her like that. Dangerous to drag her into his mess and even more dangerous to fuck around with Connor's daughter because _that_ was a fight he might not walk away whole from.

Besides, he knew himself well enough to know that he couldn't give her anything, couldn't contribute anything to a relationship. It wasn't the way he worked. Sticking to sweetbutts was easier, safer. They knew what he wanted and they knew better than to stick around for long afterwards. They didn't call him six times a day or expect him to come home for dinner with them.

He had a feeling that any fuck with Emma wouldn't be no strings attached and that scared the living shit out of him. So he had to stop thinking about her. Had to stop imagining that towel slipping up just a little higher on her thighs.

Sighing, Jax kicked his shoes off and listened to their heavy thump as they hit the floor. Staring up at the cracked, dingy ceiling, he made himself promise that he would stay as far away from Emma as he could. He had to before he did something stupid like try to get her in bed.

_Stop_, he chastised himself. _Emma is like a sister to you_. But even as he thought it, he knew that it hadn't been true in a very long time.

**xxx**

Emma stood back, tying up her long dark hair, and watching the last of the furniture from the home she'd shared with her father carried into the living room of her new home. _Jax's house_, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her. Shaking her head, Emma sighed as she instructed the prospects on where to put the overstuffed beige couch.

She had no idea when she'd start feeling at home with the fact that she had made the decision to accept Jax's generosity. The person she could have been and the person she had become were at war with each other. Maybe, if she had grown up here, with her father and Gemma she would have become someone who could graciously accept help when she'd needed it. Instead, she'd become someone who had learned the truth the hard way: asking for help just got you kicked in the teeth.

"You need anything else, Emma?" Juice asked, wiping the sweat form his forehead with the back of his hand. Even with the air conditioning running at full blast it was still just a little too hot in the house. The front door had been standing wide open all day as she and the guys had moved everything in to the house, negating any benefit of having it running at all.

"No," she said, shaking her head. She appreciated all of their help but she was dying to be alone. Time by herself had been a privilege she hadn't had much of in the last four years. There had always been someone around, especially in the group home. They were almost always overcrowded and there had been kids sleeping on the floor, on roll away cots. You couldn't even go to the bathroom without there being three other girls in there with you.

When Juice and James were gone, Emma fell backwards onto the overstuffed beige couch and settled into its comforting familiarity. She buried her face into the micro-suede cushions and inhaled deeply, then cringed inwardly at her own nostalgic stupidity. The couch had been in storage way too long to still smell like the home she remembered. She reached over and grabbed the remote off of the matching ottoman and flicked on the stereo, thankful that she had taken Juice's offer to set up the stereo and television she'd bought for herself as a house warming gift.

With Nirvana blasting through the house, Emma let herself revel in the fact that she was alone. Totally alone and in the first place she could call a home since she'd been dragged kicking and screaming out of Charming four years ago.

It wasn't a memory she liked to revisit so she reluctantly climbed to her feet and padded towards the kitchen to grab herself a glass of water. _You can't go backward, Emma_, she chastised herself as she sipped her drink, _only forward. There's no point in thinking about that shit._

But it was hard, she felt like a stranger to her own life or at least, the life she should have lead. She wasn't sure how she fit into everything anymore. She felt like she was always one beat out of sync with everyone else and she wasn't sure how to fall back into step. This life was like a sweater that had once fit her but when she found it in the back of her closet again she realized that it was just a few sizes too small.

Putting her empty glass into the sink, Emma turned to look at her new home. It was small and the walls were a beautiful vibrant color that made Emma smile every time she looked at it. But aside from the furniture she'd been able to glean from her the storage locker, it was empty. There were two couches and a matching ottoman, the television she had bought hanging on the wall but the walls were pitifully bare. It looked more like a nice hotel room than it did a home. There were no pictures, nothing personal. No sign that it was _her_ that lived here and not someone else.

She suddenly was hit with an explicable need to fill it up with things. It didn't really matter what, just something that would make anyone who walked through the front doors thing: Emma Reid lives here. Sighing, she sank down onto the ottoman and rubbed her temples absently. The only problem with that was that she had no idea what sort of things would scream Emma. She had never had many personal effects; it just wasn't feasible with the life she had led. Packing lighter meant that when she got shipped off to the inevitable next set of foster parents or back to the group home she would have less to drag with her.

She had a few pictures in her bag but none of them were really things she wanted to look at every day. Except for maybe the pictures of her, Jax and Opie.

She'd never had a chance to figure out what she liked. What color curtains did she like? Did she like modern pieces or contemporary? She didn't know, she'd never _needed_ to know. Jumping up, Emma glanced at the clock on her cell phone. It was only nine o'clock and she figured the new Wal-Mart she had seen in Lodi might still be open. Most of them were open twenty-four hours.

She yanked on her shoes and shoved her driver's license and debit card into the back pocket of her jeans. She still hadn't spent very much of the money from the account her father had set up for her. She hadn't even replaced her paint ruined clothes yet. Or, for that matter, anything. She knew it was ridiculous to only have a single set of clothing but she wasn't accustomed to spending money, especially not on things that she didn't deem a necessity. Like food. Which she didn't have much of either, if she were to be completely truthful.

Her father's old Ford pickup was sitting in the parking lot. They'd kept it on the lot and it was practically still in the same condition that it had been when he'd bought when Emma had been little. Connor had never driven it much but he'd broken down and bought it when Gemma had gently pointed out to him that while he didn't mind riding his bike in the rain, it might not be appropriate to drop Emma off at school soaking wet.

The day they had dragged her piece of shit vintage paper weight back from Lodi, Piney had dug around for the keys and handed them to her, told her where to find the truck. She'd never thought to look for it and with an eye roll he'd told her that if she'd needed a car so damn bad she could have just asked. Looking down at the keys in her hand, she felt a little stupid. She'd spent so much more than that hunk of metal was worth and she was set to spend a lot more to fix it before everything was said and done. And it _was _a damn gorgeous piece of machinery but a big part of her still chafed at having bought it when she'd apparently had a perfectly good vehicle sitting in the lot at the garage.

On the way to Lodi, Emma gave herself a pep talk silently grateful that there was no one around to hear her. She knew that most women if not _all _women didn't need any sort of encouragement to buy shit. The thought of buying something for herself gave her an allover skin prickling feeling not unlike an anxiety attack.

The store was lit up like a Christmas tree, people still streaming out of its double doors despite the late hour. She hunted down a parking spot and sighed, tightening her pony tail. "Okay, Emma," she breathed, "You can do this. Just… go in and… buy shit. Like a girl. A normal, well adjusted, functioning female member of society."

Inside the store, she grabbed a shopping cart and immediately headed towards housewares. She wandered up and down the aisles, leaning on the cart and staring absently at all of the soap dispensers, towels and shower curtains. Did she like the shower curtain with flowers? She stared at it for so long that her vision began to blur, trying to force herself to have an opinion about it. Jesus, she just wanted to hate it. She wanted to look at it and despise the pattern, the colors. But she just didn't care. It looked like it was functional. Wasn't that the point? That it kept water in.

She groaned, laying her head down on the shopping the cart and staring at the dirty tile floor. "I just want to have an opinion," she groaned to herself. She wondered if it were like this for the other former foster kids she'd grown up with.

She wondered if any of them ever found themselves wandering the aisles of a big box store at all hours of the night trying in vain to care about shower curtain patterns or what color their dishes they bought. She just wanted to know that somewhere deep down, she was still human.

Maybe if she'd grown up in Charming with her father, and went to high school and made friends and had sleepovers, maybe then she would have an opinion about these things.

She was startled when she realized that she was crying. Four years in some of the worst foster homes the state of California had to offer and she hadn't shed a single fucking tear. Now, she was finally home and she was crying her eyes out for the second time in as many weeks.

Emma angrily scrubbed the tears out of her eyes with her fists and grabbed another shower curtain off of the shelf.

Maybe she would care about this one.

**xxx**

"Coffee?"

It was early, too early to be awake considering he had only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before. His mind had refused to turn off, refused to let him relax. His thoughts had flip flopped back and forth between the shit mess his life had turned out to be and Emma in a towel. Neither of those things were conducive to a good night's sleep.

Opie was already straddling his bike and looking a good deal more well rested. He held out the Styrofoam cup, a peace offering that Jax gratefully accepted. He downed it in a couple of quick swallows and eyed the truck they would be following. It's engine was already running but there was no one behind the wheel yet.

"We ready to go?" he asked, swinging his leg over his Dyna-Glide and fitting the key into the ignition.

"Think so," Opie said, "Driver's hitting the head real quick. Look man, about last night…"

Jax shook his head firmly, "No, man. No. You were right. You're right."

The conversation died out into a mostly comfortable silence and then they were on the road and he didn't have to worry about making small talk. The roar of the bikes was comforting, the road as soothing as an ice cold beer and some warm pussy. Here, he didn't need to think. He didn't need to do anything except exist, the vibrations from the asphalt going straight through to his bones.

When they finally pulled in to a rest stop to stretch their legs, Jax was almost disappointed. It had been a while since he had gone on a ride like this one. The protection runs for Unser were almost guaranteed easy money. The likely hood of being robbed or held up on the road were pretty slim, especially the stretch of highway between Charming and Tacoma, the home of the mother charter and her first born respectively.

While Opie disappeared into the men's room, Jax stretched his aching muscles and dug into pocket of his jeans for his prepay. He'd felt it vibrate earlier but checking it on the road was a quick way to come back in a plastic trash bag.

There was a missed call from Gemma, who couldn't stop herself from worrying constantly whenever either he or Clay were on the road. And a text message from the Prospect.

"Found something," Juice's text read, "Not good."

It took Jax a minute to remember that he'd asked Juice to dig up anything he could find about Emma's time in the system. He told himself, again, that he was just checking for anything that could blow back on the club. He was just making sure everything was kosher with her sudden arrival with only a backpack full of nothing and a face that looked like it had caught a couple of right hooks.

_If you were so worried, _an annoying little voice in the back of his head nagged, _then why didn't you just take what you found to Otto or Clay. Isn't it their job to know this shit._

Shaking his head to silence his inner nag, he told himself again that he was just trying to do Emma a solid. The kind that anyone would do for someone they had grown up with. If there was nothing there then there was no reason to take it to the club. It was obvious she hadn't wanted anyone to know and he wasn't going to embarrass her if there really wasn't anything there that could come back on them.

Pulling off his leather riding gloves, Jax awkwardly typed out a reply on the tiny cell phone keypad and stuck the phone back into his pocket.

If he was so certain that he didn't have any other motives to look into Emma, then why did he suddenly feel so guilty?

**xxx**

The buzzing sound got louder and louder, yanking Emma out of a deep sleep and she opened one eye to glare at the alarm clock sitting on the floor next to her bed. Reaching out, she slapped the snooze button as hard as she could. She was starting to regret her only purchase from the night before: an alarm clock. Once it was quiet, she buried her head underneath of her blanket and squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately to fall back to sleep.

She had no idea what had made her think that eight o'clock in the morning was a good time to be awake and embracing the world but somehow, she had thought it would be a good idea when she'd set her clock last night. Now that she was awake though, she was beginning to notice the ache in her lower back and the fact that she had to pee desperately. Eventually she would need to buy an actual bed. One that actually was a little more substantial than a mattress on the floor.

Sighing, she realized that she wasn't going to get any more sleep. Hauling herself up, she padded into the bathroom. She'd barely had a chance to shut the door when she heard knocking at the front door.

"What a fucking morning," she muttered under her breath. "Just a minute!"

Whoever was at her door this early in the morning had really better have a good fucking excuse. If it was just the prospect again, asking her if she needed anything pained or lifted or some shit… she was going to have him speaking in a falsetto for the rest of the week.

Grabbing her jeans off of her bedroom floor she quickly shimmied them up her hips and sprinted for the front door. It wasn't the prospect. It wasn't Gemma, either, which would have been her second guess.

"What are you doing here?" she blurted out, her surprise showing clearly on her face. He was probably the very last person she had ever expected to see standing on her front porch.

"Nice to see you too," Jonny quipped, leaning against the doorjamb like he belonged there. "Gonna invite me in to your fancy new digs?"

Emma slowly backed out of the doorway, shock making her feet move more than anything else. He held his arms out to her and wordlessly, she stepped into them. He was nearly a full six inches taller than she was and her head slipped comfortably underneath of his chin.

Jonny looked exactly like had the last time she had seen him, nearly a year ago. He'd stood on the steps of her last group home, waving silently as that stupid gray sedan had taken her to her next and last foster home. His shaggy hair so dark it was almost black still hung into his eyes. They were green with a thin ring of orange fire around the pupil. She had memorized those eyes. She had drawn herself a mental picture so vivid that she knew she would never forget how they looked, no matter how long had passed.

"You can't be here," Emma said, stepping out of his arms and crossing her own across her chest. As much as she wanted Jonny to stay, it was dangerous. Too dangerous. Jonny was the kind of blow back that Piney had been concerned about the day he had hauled her piece of junk car back from Lodi. "How did you find me?"

He sauntered casually into her living room and sank down into the sofa. "Gimme a beer, would ya?" he asked, cocking his head towards the kitchen.

Emma's face grew turbulent, "First of all, dickhead, I don't have any beer. Second of all, I'm not your bitch and if I did have a beer your stupid ass could get up and get it yourself. But I don't have any beer. You wanna a water?"

Jonny made a face and shook his head. "Fine, you at least got any smokes?"

Begrudgingly, Emma pulled her pack out of her back pocket and held the open pack out to him. He plucked two out and tucked one behind his ear for later. Sighing, she yanked one out of the carton and lit it too, inhaling deep before she passed the lighter to Jonny. Grabbing an ash tray off of the floor, she sat down on the ottoman facing him and positioned it on her knees.

"Okay, you got a smoke. Now tell me how you found me," she insisted.

"Wasn't that hard," he said, "I've been in town for about a week. You talked so much about Charming when you were little and it's not like it was hard to find. There's only one Charming in California. So I came into town and just hung out until I saw you. Then I followed you here last night. Thought I'd wait until a decent hour before I rang your doorbell, though."

Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. This was not what she had wanted to wake up to. As much as she had missed Jonnyy, he couldn't be here. With her. In her house. In _Jax's_ house.

"You can't be here," she said, sadly. Reaching out, she slipped her palm into one of his hands. "Seriously, Jonny. You can't."

"Why not?" he leaned forward and his bright green eyes were a question and a challenge.

"Because," she faltered, "Because it's not safe. For you or me. Besides, what am I supposed to do when someone comes looking for you and finds you here? Jonny, I'll be the one who goes down for harboring a run away. And I'll go down as an adult this time."

"I just got three and a half more weeks, Ems," he whined. "Then I'll be legal and they can't touch me. So, let me stay here. I promise, I won't even leave the house until after my birthday."

He stubbed out his cigarette and leaned in towards her, sliding one hand against the back of her neck and pulling her closer until she could feel his breath on her face. Before she could push him away, his mouth was on hers. Hot and insistent and exactly how she had remembered it.

God, she was fucked.


	8. I Will Never See the Sun

**Authors Note: **Thank you guys so much for the reviews & kind words. They really do keep me going! XOXO.

**xxx**

She shoved him so hard that he fell back against the couch cushions. "Stop it," Emma hissed, crossing her arms across her chest. "That's not going to work this time."

He gave her a smirk; almost reminiscent of the one she'd often seen crossing Jax's lips. It made her seethe and she gritted her teeth to keep herself from smacking it off of Jonny's face. "Ems," he protested, pulling himself back up until he was mere inches from her face again, "C'mon, don't be like this. We had a plan. I was going to come back for you and you were supposed to come back for me. But you didn't. You fucking bailed and left me there."

Her hands trembled a little as she lifted the cigarette to her lips, inhaled deeply. "We were kids, Jonny," she said, "And I didn't exactly walk out of there with a full scholarship to Notre Dame or anything. I got tossed out on my ass with absolutely nothing. How was I supposed to help you? Shit, I can barely help myself."

She took another hit off of her smoke to calm her nerves. She'd thought about him, yeah, but she'd never thought that he would show up here. In fucking Charming. Part of her wanted him to go back to wherever it was he came from but part of her missed him badly.

She'd met him at her very first group home. He was on his way out of his fourth foster home and she was heading towards number two. They had loved each other as much as two fourteen year old kids _can_ love each other. He'd gotten himself kicked out of foster home five and six to come back to the group home when he had heard that she was still there.

And over time that love had become something more real, became a solid friendship; Jonny had taught her almost everything she knew about surviving the shit that life had thrown their way. They had fumbled through their adolescence together as children that nobody wanted or needed. Thrown away, thrown to the wolves. She owed a lot to Jonny but she knew that having him here was going to be a whole 'nother shit storm that she wasn't sure she could handle right now.

Once, it had been the two of them against the world. Now, she was home. Where people actually wanted her and where she was safe. Jonny was trouble, a special brand of trouble. He couldn't help it, it followed him wherever he went. He had loved her once, still loved her but it was always so complicated between them. He had been her brother, father, boyfriend all in one confusing package and she had been his sister, his mother and his lover all in one. Their relationship had no clearly defined boundaries.

And right now, she needed clearly defined boundaries.

And he was seventeen, still a child in the eyes of the law. She was legal, an adult, and shit would go sideways really quick for her if someone found him here.

Sighing, Emma pinched the bridge of her nose. "So, three weeks and you're gone. Find somewhere else to settle down?"

Jonny grinned; he had known she would give in. Emma _always_ gave in to him. He reached out, tucked a strand of golden brown hair behind her ear and let his fingers linger against the soft skin of her face. "I heard about it," he said, his fingers lightly tracing over the places where her skin had been bruised and swollen.

"Yeah, and?" she snarled, jerking out of his touch. It wasn't that she didn't like it, she did. But she knew that they couldn't go down that road, not now. Especially not now.

Jonny had always been a double edged sword. He loved her, definitely, but he loved himself even more. He would throw her under the knife in a second if it meant coming out on top for himself. She didn't blame him, not entirely; they had both been raised by the system. He had been shuffling through foster homes since he was ten. He didn't know another life except for the one that had raised him and it was every man, woman and child for themselves.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked. _He had always been touchy feely_, Emma thought, leaning back out of his grasp again. _But this was ridiculous_.

"No," she said, curtly, "And stop it. You can stay here but you can only stay here for three fucking weeks, Jonny. But that's it. Three weeks and then you're out."

He nodded, "Got it." But that stupid fucking smirk never left his face.

He'd gotten what he wanted.

**xxx**

Jax had had a lot of time on the road to think. To think about everything that Opie had said. To think about his situation with Wendy, that fucking piece of road pussy that never should have followed him home. He'd had time to think about his weird preoccupation with the kid.

Though, he couldn't really call her a kid anymore. She had grown up and grown up in a big way. That was a huge part of the problem, right there. But she was the daughter of a Son and that meant protecting her with his life even if it meant protecting her from himself.

They pulled into Charming just after three o'clock in the morning and while he stretched his legs at the clubhouse, he checked the voicemail from Gemma. He knew he should have checked it a day and a half ago but he had been too preoccupied with Juice's text message.

He hoped the prospect at least knew how to keep his mouth shut because he really didn't want to have to try to explain to Clay and Otto why he had gone behind the club's back to look into Emma's history. If he had suspected something he should have taken it to either of them, not acted on his own.

Gemma was worried about him, the message said. Hoped he was taking care of himself on the run and added a little quip about bringing home any more road pussy. It was a dig for having returned from Tacoma once before with Wendy in tow. They had gone to Vegas and gotten married in the middle of a four day long bender. In fact, most of the trip to Vegas was a blur to him. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to get there or back without ending up a stain on the pavement.

At the end of her message, she told him that Emma had mentioned that the hot water heater was busted. The water in the shower was running warm for a few minutes and then turning ice cold. She'd been taking showers at the clubhouse.

He glanced at the time on his prepay and wondered if it were too late to stop over there. He'd done everything except beg her to move in to the house and now it was his responsibility to make sure shit was working over there. His mother had reminded him of that at the end of the phone call.

Rubbing his tired eyes, he shoved his helmet back on and decided to give it a try. She might still be up and if it was what he thought it was it wouldn't take long to fix. There was still a box of tools in the garage and he could be in and out in about ten minutes. Then she could take a shower at her own place in the morning.

He wasn't exactly doing it completely out of the goodness of his heart either, though. Anything that minimized his running into Emma in nothing but a towel again was a win-win situation as far as Jax was concerned. He wasn't known for his ability to hold back and ended up face to face with a beautiful woman wet from the shower was going to test his restraint to the breaking point. Especially when he knew that he would be risking his own balls if he bedded her.

The ride to his old place was short and when he got there the lights in the living room were still on. _Good_, he thought, _she's still up_. He fished around in his pockets for his keys but then remembered his promise to Emma that if she were to take him up on his offer he wouldn't walk in unannounced so he rang the doorbell instead.

When the door opened, he took a step backwards, reaching down for the kabar knife that hung at his belt. A dark haired guy, shirtless and wearing only a pair of boxers answered the door. "Yeah?" the kid asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Who the fuck are you?" Jax demanded, his fingers wrapping around the hilt of the knife, prepared to yank it loose and charge the motherfucker.

He caught sight of Emma, then, rushing out of the bedroom still tugging up her jeans. Her hair was a mess and her face was flushed red. Jax might not have gone to college but it didn't take a genius to put two and two together.

"Jax?" Emma pushed the kid aside and slipped out onto the porch, shutting the door beside her. "What's wrong?"

Suddenly, he felt strangely embarrassed; like he was intruding on something. He ran a hand over his hair, feeling incredibly awkward. "Nothing—uh, nothing's wrong. I just… my mom said the hot water heater wasn't working and I…" he let the sentence die between them.

Emma's cheeks were flaming, the blush creeping all the way up into her hairline and the tips of her ears were like glowing embers. He was suddenly struck with the strangest desire to reach out and touch them. Did they feel as hot as they looked?

"Oh," she said, "You don't have to do that tonight if you don't want to. I'm fine taking showers at the clubhouse for now. No rush or anything."

He could tell that she was just as uncomfortable as he was. He felt stupid all of a sudden, he was no stranger to getting laid and hell, it practically happened right out in the open at some of the club's parties. He couldn't count on one hand the amount of times he'd turned a corner and ran into Bobby or Tig, face down in some pussy.

So why did he suddenly feel like a teenager who'd gotten caught with a Playboy in his locker.

"No," he said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shrugging his shoulders. "I'm awake and I thought it would be nice for you to be able to shower in your own place for once. I'm sorry I couldn't get here to fix it sooner. You wanna just let me into the garage? Should still be a tool box in there and I'll be out in ten."

Emma glanced back towards the front door and she looked like she was going to say something but she just shrugged. "Sure, if you don't mind…"

Inside, the guy was lounging on one of Emma's couches, smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke rings up at the ceiling. When she saw him, Emma's cheeks flamed up again, a bright and vivid red.

"Sorry for interrupting your night," he said with a wink and a sly grin.

When he thought Emma's blush couldn't go any deeper, it did, spreading in a fiery line down her chest. "It's not really what you're thinking," she protested.

"Whatever you say, darlin'."

**xxx**

The clubhouse was packed full of girls and patches and somebody had put Willie Nelson on the jukebox in the corner. Emma glanced down one more time before she slipped into the clubhouse, suddenly feeling more than a little self-conscious. When Gemma and Luanne had dragged her shopping last week, she hadn't thought it was such a bad idea. She had trouble buying things for herself but logic told her that a single pair of jeans and two tank tops weren't going to cut it in the long haul.

Now, though, she was wondering what she had been thinking. They'd somehow talked her into a pair of dark wash curve hugging skinny jeans that made her legs looked like they went on for miles. The boots had been all Luanne and Emma was pretty sure they would have looked better on a porn star than they did on her. They were black leather that folded and slouched up to her knee with a four inch stiletto. In fact, if she didn't fall flat on her face tonight it was going to be a miracle.

The worst part she thought, suddenly feeling extremely exposed, was the top that Gemma had picked out. It was a tank top but not her standard wife beater. The straps were so think they were barely there and the neckline plunged so low that she was pretty sure that if turned the wrong way her tits were going to be popping out all over the place. Even though it was warm outside, she'd topped it with the cropped leather jacket that had been a purchase all of her own. It made her feel at least a little bit more confident, even if she was sure that she looked like a teetering mess in the heels.

Emma made a beeline for the bar, she definitely needed some liquid courage if she was going to loosen up enough to actually have fun. And once, she had loved these parties. True, she'd been sent upstairs with her favorite stuffed animal before anything got _fun_ but she had loved knowing that her whole entire family was gathered downstairs while she slept. And she could almost always look forward to some of Bobby's French toast in the morning.

If he wasn't too hung over, at least.

"Little girl," Piney's gruff voice interrupted her as she reached for the bottle of Jameson that was wedged into a back corner of the cabinet. It had been collecting dust since her dad had gone inside, she was sure. She'd never seen any of the other guys drink it. "You ain't even old enough to hold that bottle let alone drink it."

Emma rolled her eyes, "Don't worry, old man. It's not my first rodeo."

She danced around Piney, holding the bottle aloft until she was safely away from his reaching hands. She unscrewed the bottle top and took a long swig. "Besides, I was raised by a bunch of guys who think the law is more of a guideline than a firm rule. What do you expect?"

Piney laughed, a rare gruff sound, and Emma was instantly transported back to her childhood for a moment. She had missed Piney who had been one of her father's most treasured friends. In fact, Piney had sponsored her father when he'd patched in and became a Son.

"Sure," he said, pulling out his own flask and taking a long swig. "Blame it all on your dear old dad."

Her calves were burning, the muscles not used to trying to balance on five inch stilettos, and she slid onto the bar stool next to him as gracefully as she could manage. She was going to kill Luanne for convincing her to buy these things if she didn't break her neck first.

Piney had drained his flask and grabbed for a bottle of Jack and a shot glass. "Just hope you can hold your liquor as good as your daddy, kid."

"As good as?" Emma retorted, the two pulls of Jameson she'd already downed were already loosening her muscles, spreading a slow burning warmth throughout her body. "Try better."

"Oh yeah? That so, huh? Well even your daddy couldn't keep up with me, little girl." Piney was pouring himself a shot of the syrupy amber liquid. "Shit, I was getting sloppy drunk before you were even a tingle in your daddy's nut sack."

Emma made a face and shook her head, "I could have lived without hearing that, old man." She reached behind her for a shot glass too, swiveling around on the bar stool. "But is that a challenge I hear?"

She had learned to hold her liquor during her first year in the system. Some of the boys had taken to making homemade hooch in mason jars underneath of their beds and it had been some of the strongest shit she had ever drank. But it had taken the edge off and that had been all she was looking for.

She filled up her own shot glass and clinked it with Piney's in a toast.

And then there was an empty bottle of Jameson sitting in front of her, another bottle down to half way empty and Piney was asleep in the corner of the clubhouse, his head nodding against his chest. She felt fine, though. Everything was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges and she wasn't exactly sure who had won that bet but other than that, she felt fine.

She stood up, though, and it was a little like hitting a brick wall with her face. She had never been quite this drunk, not even when she'd taken turns sipping that moonshine in the dark with Jonny. But she had also never felt better than she did in that moment.

"Shit," she mumbled, stumbling towards the jukebox, "Whoever keeps playing all this Willie Nelson is gonna get a boot up the ass…"

"That'd be me."

The guy, come to think of it, looked a lot like Jonny but she had left him at home with strict instructions to stay there. She'd explained in no uncertain terms that if he so much as peeked out of a window she would kick his ass out onto the street.

"Alex," the guy said, he was already at least two sheets to the wind and he was eyeing her up and down like she was a slab of porter house steak.

"Emma," she said, leaning in close. "And you have got to do something about this Willie Nelson, man. I mean, I like this shit as much as the next girl but you've been playing it all fucking night."

Alex laughed and unfolded himself from the table he had been sitting at. "Alright, honey. What do _you _wanna hear, then?"

The jukebox didn't look like it had been updated in the last decade, to say the least. She flipped through it, finally stopping on a Led Zepplin song that she hadn't heard in a long time.

Stepping back from the jukebox, she lost her balance on the thin heels, stumbling. She felt Alex's hands on her waist, pulling her down onto his lap. "Watch out, honey," he said, in that smoky, half-drunk voice. "Don't wanna mess up that pretty face."

And even though she was in a room full of men who wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet between someone's eyes on her behalf, Emma's heart started racing. Something about those words and the way he said it triggered a memory that she had hoped to keep locked down in the very back corners of her mind.

Carefully extricating herself from Alex's grip, she forced herself to smile as politely as she could manage. "Thanks for the song," she said, her voice sounding far away and foreign, "But I'm gonna go get some air. It's getting hot in here."

She slipped through the crowd, moving slowly and deliberately so that she wouldn't fall. When she reached the picnic table, she dug into the pocket of her leather jacket for her packs of smokes and lit one up.

The nicotine burn felt good at the back of her throat, cutting through some of the drunken blur. She was still dying to know who had won, her or Piney, but she had a feeling that by the time it was all said and done they were both too drunk to remember.

**xxx**

It wasn't that Jax had been watching her all night; because he hadn't been. He knew she'd tried to match Piney shot for shot and now the old man was sleeping it off in a corner and Emma was tottering around on those heels of hers, all doe eyed and sloppy.

She stumbled over to the jukebox and into some shitfaced hang-around's lap. He told himself that the only reason he wanted to go and knock that douchebag's teeth down his throat was out of respect for his brother who couldn't be here to do it himself.

Emma had the right to fuck anyone she wanted to and she'd proved it a few nights ago when some half naked punk ass kid had answered her door. But he knew that Connor would take exception to his little girl getting nasty with some hang-around.

So when Emma stumbled outside and the asshole got up and followed her, he trailed behind him. Just to make sure that anything that went down out there was kosher and consented to. There was something about the look on Emma's face when she disappeared into the cool night air that made him think that she was looking for a way to lose this creep.

"Hey, baby," the guy was slurring when Jax rounded the corner. He was leaning up against Emma and had his arms possessively around her waist. Shit, that guy had some balls on him. It was obvious that Emma wasn't having any of it and pushing up no the daughter of a patch was like asking to be sent home with your balls in your pockets. "You wanna come back to my place…"

Jax had heard enough and it was obvious Emma had too. She gave him a little push backwards and smile through tight lips. "Nah, I'm good."

"But—."

It didn't take too much effort to drop the asshole like a sack of potatoes. Jax was drunk, probably too drunk, but that had never stopped him from throwing a punch before.

Spitting and cussing, Alex picked himself up out of the dirt and didn't say another word before he slunk back off into the clubhouse to nurse his wounds with a beer and some easier pussy. He was smart enough, even drunk, that he knew better than to talk back to a patch. It was a quick way to end up spending the rest of his night in an emergency room somewhere.

"You alright?" Jax asked her when they were alone.

Emma nodded, climbing up on the picnic table, using Jax's shoulder for stability in her too tall boots. "I'm good," she said, "Are you?"

Jax smirked, that cocky grin that had always driven her crazy. "Darlin', I'm always good." Sure, his knuckles were a little sore and they'd probably be a little swollen tomorrow but he wasn't about to admit that here, now.

"No," Emma drawled out, "I mean are you done trying to prove that your dick is bigger."

He arched an eyebrow, leaning down and plucking her smoke from between her fingers and taking a hit off of it. She snatched her cigarette back and her eyes narrowed into a glare.

Shit, this was not exactly how he thought this would go down. Most of the bitches he'd come across would have been throwing their panties at him right now. They loved it when he took control, defended their honor and all that shit. But this girl, she was not happy.

Not at all.

"I can take care of myself, Jax," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not a kid who needs you to take care of her. I've been taking care of myself for years."

"Just tryin' to help, darlin'." He couldn't help but notice the way that scowl on her face made her lips look even fuller than usual. That pout was doing things to him that it shouldn't. Shit, following her out here had been a very bad decision. He needed to walk away, now, before all that liquor he'd drank had him doing something stupid.

"Emma," he said, slowly. He wasn't sure why he had chosen that particular moment to ask her about the pictures he had seen. Just that the alcohol had him thinking it was a good idea and he had been disappointed with the shit intel Juice had brought him back. He'd found out she had done a couple stints in juvie but he hadn't been able to tell Jax why. He'd found out she'd been through more than a dozen foster homes but again, he couldn't tell Jax why. The state of California had covered their tracks good and it looked like the only way he was going to find out what he wanted to know was by going directly to the source.

If the source would talk to him, that was.

"What?" she snapped, leaning back to look up at him and sucking on her cigarette.

Okay, maybe now wasn't the best time but he couldn't stop his traitorous mouth from spitting the words out, even as his brain fought to stop him. "So, when I went to get you that change of clothes some pictures fell out of our bag and I saw…"

Shit. Shit. Her eyes had gone from being irritated slits to wide with anger. "What the fuck, Jax. I send you for a pair of jeans and a shirt and you go through my shit? Who the hell do you think you are? My fucking father?" she hissed.

"It's not going through your shit when the stupid fucking pictures fall out of your bag all over the floor. I was putting them back and I glanced down and saw some shit. I want to know what the hell it is you're running from, Emma. Because no one acts the way you act who isn't running from something. Those bruises on your face when you got here and I heard you shoving the dresser in front of your door whenever you were in the clubhouse—."

She jumped to her feet as fast as she could without busting her face. Emma hadn't been this angry in a long time, the adrenaline and anger pumping through her body made her bold. "Fuck you, Jax. If you're asking if I'm trying to pawn my dirty laundry off on the club—."

She wasn't really expecting him to kiss her.

His mouth was insistent on hers, soft and demanding all at the same time. Somewhere, her fourteen year old self was doing cartwheels and backflips. His hands seemed like they were everywhere: around her waist, in her hair.

After a few breathless moments, she shoved him away, hard. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she hissed, glancing around frantically to see if anyone had been there to bear witness to what just happened. She couldn't imagine the shit that would hit the fan if it made it back to Connor that his daughter was acting like a sweetbutt with Samcro's reigning heir.

"What does it look like, darlin'?" he asked and she caught a glimpse of that cocky fucking smile before he went back in for another kiss. His hands were tangled in her hair, pulling her closer and angling her head so that his tongue could delve into her mouth. Later, she would blame the booze but she couldn't help kissing him back. It felt just as good as her fourteen year old self had imagined it would.

Jax reached down, his hands gripping the backs of her thighs and she felt herself involuntarily moving with him, letting her lift him into his arms. Her legs curved around his waist and she couldn't stop herself from running her hands through his hair, just once.

It felt good. Too good to stop. She broke away from his mouth and caught a glimpse of Jax's hooded eyes. They were doing a kind of slow burn that made her stomach flip flop. Without overthinking it too much, she ducked down to press kisses along his throat, sucking gently at the place where his jaw bone and throat met.

Jax groaned and she felt him moving, carrying her into the office where he slid down into Gemma's office chair, his hands firm at the small of her back. Letting her go would mean that he would have to come to his senses and push her away. Blame it on being drunk and stupid.

Emma was straddling his lap, her mouth quick and hot against his throat. She could feel him, pressed against her thigh, hard and hot. Suddenly, she felt incredibly inexperienced. She had never exactly been a blushing prude but she knew that a man like Jax was going to want something more than a make out session and some dry humping. And that was just about where her experience stopped.

He pressed her closer, one hand spread across her ass and urging her on as she rubbed herself against him. Emma let go and let her body move in the ways it knew that it was supposed to. She stopped overthinking, shit. She stopped thinking at all.

Jax's hands were frantically pushing her jacket off of her shoulders and when it was in a pile on the floor he reached for the hem of her tank top. Before she could stop him, the tank top slipped over her arms and was gone. Suddenly, she felt entirely too exposed, awkward.

When she glanced up, she knew it was too late though. He'd already seen the scar that started at her hip bone and curved a nasty path up her side. It had been deep and the stiches done hastily at a free clinic. The skin was still pink, shiny and puckered.

"Darlin'," Jax murmured but it was too late. Self-conscious, Emma was already backing away from him, climbing off of his back and reaching down for her tank top.

"Stop." His voice was hoarse as he pulled her back onto his lap. His fingers traced the scar from one end to the other. It looked like a knife wound, a serrated blade like a kitchen knife.

Emma's skin tingle where touched her and he slid one hand around the back of her neck, holding firm so she couldn't move. Jax pulled her down into a kiss, sucking gently at her bottom lip.

She felt like she was melting against him and when she moaned it almost sounded like a purr. When he was confident she wasn't going anywhere, he reached down and unfastened her bra with the ease of a man who had been done this kind of thing hundreds of times before.

"God," he hissed, the air rushing out between his clenched teeth. His hands were roaming around her chest, cupping her breasts and squeezing each nipple, but his eyes were on hers, his eyes were on her face. "You are so fuckin' beautiful."

Emma shuddered, her whole body arching into his hands. He knew exactly what he was doing to her. She leaned forward to slide his kutte off of his shoulders when they both heard it: Clay's voice, loud and angry over the din of the party. "Unser," he barked, "What the fuck is going on?"

If they hadn't been so wrapped up in each other they would have heard the crunch of tires on gravel and two cars rattling to a stop in front of the clubhouse.

"Shit," Jax hissed, shooting her an apologetic look. But Emma was already re-dressing herself as quickly as she could.

When they slipped out of the office, quietly, Emma was horrified to see everyone standing around with a full view of Jax walking out behind her, his hand at the small of her back with a familiarity that he shouldn't have had.

Unser's face looked pinched, stressed. "Clay, this is Special Agent Kohn. He's with the FBI and he's here for Emma."

"Emma?" Bobby demanded, stepping forward to stand next to Clay. He was instantly sober and so was Emma who stopped dead in her tracks.

"Shit," she hissed, so low that Jax was the only one who heard her.

"What the hell is this about?" Bobby growled, drunk enough that he didn't think anything about stepping up toe to toe with this asshole in a three piece suit. Fed or not, nobody was going to walk up in the clubhouse and haul off one of their own without a good fucking reason.

"Ms. Reid," Agent Kohn said, turning to face her with a deceptively polite smile. "I'm afraid you're under arrest for the attempted murder and maiming of Robert Tarmark. If you could please put your hands behind your back…"

Emma stood, frozen in place. While she wasn't naïve enough to think that shit was never going to catch up with her, this wasn't the way she thought that it would happen. Truthfully, she always thought that Mr. Tarmark would catch up with her himself.

"What the hell are they doing sending the FBI for this shit?" Clay demanded, his cigar clenched so tight between his teeth that Jax thought he was going to bite right through it. "Local PD can't handle one 90 pound kid?"

Agent Kohn looked over his shoulder at Clay, "Because Ms. Reid fled across state lines, this has become a federal case."

Emma had gone so pale that Jax could have traced her blood vessels through her skin, a working map of the inside of her. His own heart was beating fast and he was suddenly sober. There was no way that everyone hadn't seen him stumbling out of the office behind Emma. It was obvious from her flushed skin and bruised, swollen lips that they hadn't been catching up on old times in there.

Kohn approached Emma the same way he might approach wild animal, cautiously and with small, sure steps. When he was close enough his hand clamped down on her wrist and forced her to her knees.

"Hey!" he barked and lunged for the fed but suddenly Opie was there, an unmovable mountain between Kohn and Jax. It burned Ope up to see Emma shoved around like that but nothing good was going to come of letting Jax go toe to toe with a fucking federal agent.

"She's a fucking girl," Opie hissed, "And she's not fighting you, why don't you just put the cuffs on her and go."

Jax's whole body was tense as he watched that fed fucker lock a pair of cuffs around Emma's small wrists and drag her towards the back of his gray sedan. He knew what she had to be thinking right now, that fucking car was almost identical to the one that had dragged her away from Charming four years ago.

And now she was facing going inside for a long damn time.


	9. Presidents & Magistrates

**Authors Note: **Sorry! Sorry! I know this update is ridiculously late but I was sick… well, still am sick but I've been working on this in bits and pieces when I could stand to be vertical for more than a few seconds. Hope this chapter makes up for the waiting. As always, thank you guys _**SOOO**_ much for all the love & reviews. It's really awesome to me that not only are people bothering to read this but they like it. It really means a lot to me to that you guys like Emma, because she's absolutely one of my favorite people _ever_. Let me know what you think, your reviews leave a huge smile on my face and I could definitely use one at the moment, as I'm still feeling absolutely miserable! XOXO.

**xxx**

They'd been in church for almost an hour already, cigarette smoke hanging thick in the air and the ash trays almost overflowing onto the redwood table. Jax rubbed a hand over his face, he was exhausted. There was nothing he had wanted more than to stay in bed for the rest of the morning.

"You bastards look like hell," Clay said his voice rough with lack of sleep. Church was always the longest few hours of his life after a party the night before. They were _all _exhausted, hung over.

Jax groaned inwardly. Last night had been a disaster. He'd had Emma, half naked on his lap in a spectacular display of drunken stupidity, when Unser had shown up with a Fed. All of his promises to himself to stay the hell away from the kid had gone completely out the window when he'd followed her outside after that asshole Alex couldn't take no for an 'd sworn up and down that he would leave her the hell alone but once he'd gotten a little booze in his system, he hadn't been able to stop himself. He still couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to be inside that pussy and he also couldn't help but feel guilty in the knowledge that if she hadn't been arrested he would probably know by now.

And he would be a dead man walking.

He still might be if word got back to Connor in Stockton that when his little girl was arrested she was fall down drunk and coming out of the office with Jax Teller trailing behind her. No one would believe that he hadn't tapped that sweet piece of ass.

"So, we gotta talk about Emma," Clay said, as the meeting was wrapping up. "Connor's already gotten word to me from Stockton. He wants us to set his little girl up with Rosen. Now, I know family is family and we all love that kid but I gotta wonder if getting mixed up in whatever shit storm that girl has gotten herself into is going to blow back on us in a bad way."

He let that sink in for a minute. Hearing Emma's name jerked Jax out of the day dream he was having about how soft her skin had felt under his hands. Last night had done nothing to quell his infatuation with he knew that there could never be a repeat of the night before. He stuck with sweetbutts and croweaters because he could be pretty sure that that shit wasn't going to follow him home. No phone calls, text messages, no expecting more than what he was willing to give. But Emma was family, the daughter of a club member, and that was no man's land. Especially when he had no intention of following through with anything other than a good fuck.

"We're gonna take care of 'er," Piney growled, his fist a clenched knot on the table. "You put in whatever call you gotta put in to Rosen."

"Now wait a minute, old man," Tig said, drawing in a long deep drag off of his cigarette. "But don't you think we outta find out exactly what she's going down for before we decide to get involved."

"One way or another," Piney said, cryptically, "We're already involved. You don't think that piece of shit fed already knows who her daddy is? She's already looking at guilt by association. Ain't no way that girl is gonna get a fair trial."

Clay's face was grim, "You know something you're not telling us, old man?"

Piney spread his hands out on the table, "She told me some things. That piece of shit she's locked up behind was her foster daddy. He waited until the minute she turned eighteen before he put hands on her. He tried to rape her but she got him one in the throat and hauled ass up out of there. I… I told her not to tell anybody because I knew if her daddy found out there would be hell to pay and he would have found some way to make sure that idjit ended up dead."

The entire table fell silent, letting the information sink in. Clay was the one who finally broke the silence. "Alright," he said, finally. "We'll get her Rosen. I'll make the call."

Jax slunk away from the table feeling even more disgusted with himself than he had been when he'd sat down. If they hadn't been interrupted, he would have gotten what he wanted. And what he had wanted had been Emma writhing naked underneath of him. Now he felt no better than that asshole foster father of hers. Sure, she might have wanted it but she'd been drunk as shit and in no place to say yes or no to anything.

Emma needed someone who could take care of her, take it slow with her. Show her that sex could be something positive and even fun. That person was _not _him. Not now, anyway, and probably not ever.

**xxx**

Emma glanced up when she heard the metallic slide of the barred doors leading into Charming PD's holding cells. She wondered absently when they'd be moving her back up to Oregon. When they'd run out of California based foster homes that could deal with someone like her, they'd placed her up in Oregon, just over the border. She knew that she was looking down the barrel at an extradition and while she knew that both Oregon and California had the death penalty, she'd heard that it was a lot easier to come face to face with the needle in Oregon.

"Ems." When she heard Opie's voice, she almost broke down into tears. "C'mon," he said, reading the look on her face. "You can't do that shit. We don't have a lot of time. That fed bastard is still around here somewhere and Unser can't distract them forever."

Emma fisted the tears off of her cheeks and stood up, her teeth clenched tight to keep herself from crying any more than she already had. "Yeah," she said tightly, "I'm good now, sorry."

Opie's eyes softened and he reached between the bars to stroke her hair. "You're gonna be okay, kid. Clay's calling Rosen down here to see if there's anything he can do."

Emma's eyes widened, she was torn between the immense waves of relief that flooded her and feeling ashamed that once again she had had to rely on the club to bail her out of trouble. She had wanted nothing more than to be able to stand on her own two feet but it seemed like every time she got back up life wanted to smack her ass down again.

"You should know," Opie said finally, refusing to make eye contact with her. "Piney had to tell us…"

Somewhere, deep down, she had known that he would have to. She had trusted Piney to keep her secrets but she knew that if it had ever come down to it and there was blow back like there was now, it would have to come out to the rest of the part that burned the most, though, was Jax knowing. It said a lot to her that he wasn't here with Opie. "I understand," she said, shrugging her shoulders , Opie seemed to pick up on that discomfort and didn't say anything more. Instead, he leaned in and slid his arms through the bars, pulling her in to a difficult hug.

"Please," she said, hoarsely when they broke away from each other. "Tell the guys I said… thank you." It was almost physically painful to spit out those words, but like it or not she owed them her thanks. She'd suffered through court appointed attorneys before and each time had netted her at least a few months in juvie. This time, though, she realized with a hard swallow, she was looking at much more than juvie lock up. She was looking at prison and she was almost positive that the nearest women's prison was in Chowchilla. Emma shuddered; she'd heard enough stories about Chowchilla that she knew it was the last place she wanted to go. "And tell your dad that it's okay, I understand that he had to tell everyone. I never expected him to keep my secrets from the club if it came down to it."

And she hadn't. She understood as only someone like Opie and Jax could understand; someone who was second generation Sam Crow even though unlike Opie and Jax she would never prospect or wear the Reaper. The club came before everything and everyone else for them. It had to. These were their brothers, as thick a bond as anything and sometimes stronger than even those bonds between blood brothers.

"There's someone else who wants to see you, real quick. We don't have a lot of time; Unser is taking a big risk letting us get in here to see you. Chin up, kid. It won't be much longer," he said, a sad smile playing on his lips.

She nodded, choking back tears as she watched Opie retreat. Fisting them away, angrily, she barely noticed when Jax took his place. She was busy fighting back her urge to cry that she missed the play of conflicting emotions that crossed his face.

"Never thought I'd see you on this side of the bars, kid." Emma ignored how much it chafed to be called 'kid' by the man who had been all mouth and hands the night before. He certainly hadn't thought of her as a kid then.

"Yeah, well," she threw him a smirk, "The apple never did fall far from the tree, did it?"

"Look," he said, all business now, "I'm sorry about last night… I never should have—."

Emma cut him off with a look, "_I'm_ not sorry," she said, pointedly.

Jax swallowed, hard. "Ope told you we're going to get Rosen down here to see what he can do about the charges?"

She nodded but she couldn't help but notice that he was changing the subject. "So, what?" she asked, flippantly. She couldn't help herself, not now. She was tired, she was scared shitless and she was hungry, all a toxic combination that resulted in a slightly childish urge to push his buttons. She couldn't stand the way he was looking at her right now, all pity with a healthy dose of detached affection. It was the kind of affection that one would bestow upon his brother's unruly child. "So I was good enough to fuck last night but today you find out that I'm damaged goods and you're freaked?"

Fire sparked in his eyes and for a moment she thought he was going to turn around and walk; either that or tell her she was right. That she _was _damaged goods. "Don't," he said, his tone a warning. He stepped closer to the bars, pressed right up against them. "Don't ever let me hear that shit come out of your mouth again. There is _nothing_ wrong with you. And yeah, last night you were good enough to fuck. If I'd had a few more minutes alone with you I _would have_. But today, I'm sober and I'm not trying to get my junk sent home with me in a box by your dad. If anyone here is _damaged goods_," he spat at her, "It's _me. _I'm a fuckin' train wreck, Ems and I'm not dragging anyone down with me, especially not family. I wasn't looking for anything more than a fuck last night and you were there and willing. We both would have regretted it."

She swallowed hard, letting everything he had said sink in. Under any other circumstances she probably would have let it ride. Sulked somewhere for a few hours and licked her wounds until she could face him without her cheeks burning with shame.

Not tonight, though. Tonight she was full of piss and vinegar and she couldn't take it out on that smug fucking fed so she was going to take it out on Jax, right or wrong. "Oh," she said, stepping up to the bars so that she was as close to face to face with him as she could get with him towering over her by more than a few inches. "So, you think I'm some needy ass female whose gonna blow up your phone the minute you stick your dick in her? Because I've got a pussy I _must _be looking for some romantic shit. Maybe all I wanted was a quick fuck and—."

He didn't let her finish, he reached through the bars and tangled his fingers in her hair. He couldn't help but notice that she still smelled exactly the same as she had last night, perched on his lap. She smelled like whiskey, vanilla and cigarette smoke. For anyone else, it might have been a turn off but for him, he couldn't help but appreciate it. Before he had a chance to let his brain catch up with his body, he was pulling her as close as he could with the bars in the way, pressing his mouth against hers after a little maneuvering.

When he finally broke the kiss and pulled his hands back through the bars, Emma's knees were weak. "That was a mistake," he said but he couldn't help but look smug when he saw how she leaned against the bars to catch her breath. "But I can't help it, pissed off inmates do it for me."

Before she could find a quick retort, he was gone.

**xxx**

"So, what are we looking at here?" Clay had a cigar clenched between his teeth. It smoldered, filling the air with the sweet, acrid smell of smoke. Rosen sat across from him and Piney to his right. Maybe because the girl had confided in him so easily, but the old man felt responsible for her, insisted on sitting in on the meeting with her lawyer.

"We can argue self-defense," the lawyer said, his fingers a steeple on the redwood table. The grim set of his mouth said that there was a catch. _There was always a fucking catch_, Piney thought to himself, grimly. He knew the kid was going to have an uphill battle all the way. Her association with the club would poison most judges against her right out the gate. It wasn't fair but it was what it was. He felt guilty, though, that she would most likely do time because of the family, the club, that he himself had helped build. The old ladies, now they knew what they were getting in to when they fell in love with their men. Her, Ope and Jax, but especially her, were born to it. They didn't have a choice in the matter one way or the other.

"But?" he asked, unconsciously mirroring the lawyer's grim look as he reached for a Marlboro from the crumbled pack on the table in front of him.

"But the attack happened in her bedroom at the residence. She had the knife underneath of her pillow. That's going to suggest that it was a premeditated act. That she was planning this from the moment she stepped foot in that house."

Clay rolled his eyes, "So even though that fucker was _in_ her bedroom in the first place—."

"It was his house," Rosen countered, sadly. "Unfortunately, this isn't the first case of its kind that I've had the displeasure of being familiar with. A foster child, usually, who gets an uncomfortable feeling about their foster parent or a child who has been abused in a previous foster home will seek to protect themselves. Often in the form of lifting a knife from the kitchen or a razorblade from the bathroom and when the time comes for them to use the weapon to defend themselves—rightfully, of course—they are penalized. The prosecution almost always insists that the violence was premeditated because the weapon was not in the place one would assume it should be. For example, the knife in the kitchen, the razorblade in the bathroom… that sort of thing."

"So, you're meaning to tell me," Piney grumbled, "That if the motherfucker had tried to rape her in the kitchen and she'd gutted his ass there she'd walk."

Rosen cleared his throat, "Well, not necessarily _walk_ but we would certainly have an easier road ahead of us. This man is smart, he's depraved and he's smart and personally, I think that's the most dangerous kind of pedophile. He has urges to touch them when they're underage but he makes do with self-stimulation until they become legal adults under his care. The law is very cut and dry on consent or should I say _non-consent_ when it comes to children, especially when the person performing the sexual act is in a caregiver or guardian role. Unfortunately, the minute the child turns eighteen it becomes much more of a gray area. There is still a lot of victim shaming and debate over what defines rape in our judicial system."

The verdict was grim, Rosen had said, he couldn't guarantee them much. His words reverberated in Piney's head as he bellied up to the bar. Things had just gotten bleak for the little girl that he had for so long loved like his own child. She was second only to Opie in his affections. After all, Connor had always been like a son to him, too. Her father had been not much more than a boy when Piney had sponsored him into the club and convinced the other guys to let him prospect. The kid had just returned from the gulf war and that was something that Piney could understand, being a Vietnam vet himself. The sense of loss, of confusion when your feet hit peaceful soil again could be overwhelming. It had made Connor one of the best prospects the club had ever seen. He had been young, strong, full of fire and desperately searching for something to hold him to the places his feet touched. The club was all that and more to him, the family he'd been looking for and finally found.

So, to see his only daughter behind bars hit Piney in a place he wasn't sure he really wanted to think about.

"Whatcha thinkin' about, brother?" Big Otto was leaning against the bar, his glasses slipping down his nose in the summer heat. Otto was one of those men that JT had always talked about. Men who put brains before bullets and cared deeply about the family, the community, that he and Piney had built.

"Emma," the old man answered honestly. "Can't help but be worried about that girl. Connor is more than a brother to me, he's like a son. I can't help but feel guilty that his baby girl is in this shit."

Otto was a good man to wear the vice president patch. He was the rationality, the conscience to Clay's brawn, to his muscle. He was the thinker to Clay's brute force, jump in head first attitude. "Nothing we can do, is there?" Otto asked, but his voice hinted towards something else.

"What're you thinkin' on?" Piney growled, downing a shot of Jack like it was water. The old man's liver had to be shot to hell by now; he had a whiskey breakfast with a whiskey chaser most days.

"If there's no crime, there's no crime," he said in that soft spoken way of his. "What I'm tryin' to say here is, if the sack of shit whose life she almost ended were to admit to putting his hands on her then the prosecution doesn't have much ground to stand on, do they?"

Piney mulled his words over for a few moments and when he looked up, there was a familiar, feral gleam to Otto's eyes. The man was soft spoken; he was the kind of man who thought things through but make no mistake: his silence wasn't to be mistaken for weakness. He was a man who wasn't afraid to get bloody once he'd weighed all of his options and came down to the conclusion that there wasn't another way to get things done.

"I'll send Tig, Jax and Opie up to Oregon to get a read on the guy. See if he can't be _persuaded_ to come clean and end this shit," Big Otto said, giving Piney a slow, quick smile that let him know just what kind of persuading this asshole was going to get. The kind that ended with him in a bloody mess if he weren't keen to see things their way.

"I'll bring it up to the club at church," Otto said, "But it shouldn't take much to get Clay and the rest of the boys to agree to this. It's been a long time since any of them have gotten their hands dirty and I know that they're likely itching for a fight," almost as an afterthought he added, "And Emma is special to all of us. Me and Luann, we haven't been blessed with children in this life but that doesn't mean I don't have a soft spot for her, Jax and your boy. Hell, when they say it takes a village they aren't lyin'. Turns out, in our case it takes an MC to raise a child."

Piney downed another shot, slower than the first, once Otto was gone. He felt more at ease now that he could be almost certain Emma wouldn't rot away in some prison right along with her daddy. The club _did_ come before everything and everyone else but at the same time, they were still a family. Maybe not the family John Teller had imagined when this whole thing began but they were a family none the less and they took care of their own.

Knowing that his brothers were gonna take care of Connor's girl took a weight off of his shoulders that he hadn't realized was there until it was gone.

So engrossed in his own thoughts and the bottle on the table in front of him, Piney almost missed Jax slipping up the stairs to his left, "Hold on just a minute, boy," he growled. He wasn't about to let Jax disappear until the two of them had a little come to Jesus moment.

"Yeah?" Jax shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He had an idea of what this was about and he wished he'd at least made it up to his room to grab a fresh pack of smokes before they had this conversation. He'd been avoiding his mother all day but Piney had caught him off guard.

"Don't think that no one saw you slinking out of that office behind Emma like the cat that ate the fuckin' canary," Piney said, pushing the bottle over towards Jax. "I know you well enough, son, to know that you think with your dick when you oughta be thinking with your brain. I'm only gonna tell you this once," he said, firmly and Jax could see the steel in his eyes. "You stay the hell away from that little girl. She's been through miles of shit and she don't need to be treated like no pass around by you or anyone else."

"It wasn't like that," Jax protested. "We didn't do any more than kiss."

He couldn't help but feel like a naughty high school boy when Piney turned that steely gaze on him. He was a grown ass man and he should be acting like one but Piney was one of the few people who could turn him back into a guilty teenager. He'd grown up with Piney as a second father, so to speak, and when Piney chastised him it was like having Big John Teller back in the flesh to give his son what for.

"I don't care what you did or why you did it," Piney said, taking pity on Jax and offering him a smoke from his pack. "All I care about is making sure that I don't turn you over to Gemma with your dick in your back pocket when Connor gets through with you. You don't shit where you eat, son. Remember that. You wanna get your rocks off you do it with a sweetbutt or some piece of road pussy. You _do not_ do it with that girl."

The old man had said his piece and he turned away, back to his bottle of whiskey and the thoughts that were a jumble of old memories and new in his head.

Jax slunk off, taking the stairs two at a time until he'd reached the room he called home now. Not that he'd ever really left it, he could count on one hand the number of nights he'd spent in that house with Wendy. He'd sobered up quick after he'd realized just who and what he'd put a ring on and spent most of his time at the clubhouse even after he was married, drowning in booze and pussy.

And now, just when he'd thought he was free, she was sucking him back in. He'd gotten a bill in the mail earlier from an OBGYN out in Lodi. Wendy was gonna drain him for all he was worth before this was over, he could tell. She'd already drained him emotionally and now she was putting him back through the ringer with this pregnancy bullshit.

He felt like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. The bullshit with Wendy was tearing him up; he wasn't ready for any of this shit. One minute he was a hairsbreadth away from getting out of their sham of a marriage unscathed and the next he was facing a lifetime shackled to that crank whore. And as if he didn't have enough on his plate, there was Emma. Or, more accurately, his unhealthy obsession with Emma. Having her, half naked and moaning in his lap had been a huge mistake. But following it up with the kiss at the jail was playing with fire. Dragging his fingers through his hair he wondered if he were a man with a death wish. Because there was only one way this thing with Emma could end and that was badly.

Piney, he was sure, wasn't the only one who had caught him sneaking out of the Teller-Morrow office behind her that night. His mother, with her hawk eyes, was sure to have caught it and he'd catch a pile of shit over that with her when she finally caught up with him.

But that wasn't going to be worse than the shit he'd get if Connor caught on. No one in their right mind would want their kid mixed up in his bullshit. He was on a sinking ship and he had no right to shackle someone else to the mess that he called a life.

He'd tried to explain it to her at the jail but the way she'd stared at him, full of hell fire and spitting mad, had done something to him that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Obviously, it had caused him to lose his fucking mind because that was the only explanation he had for kissing her again.

A knock at the door drew him out of his heavy thoughts and Jax sighed, crossing the room in a few short, quick steps to open it. Otto leaned against the door and the expression on his face told Jax that there was a lot on his mind.

"Got a minute?" he asked, stepping inside without waiting for Jax's answer. Big Otto was twisting a cigarette in his fingers, a nervous tick that he had come home with after his last stint in Stockton. "I wanna talk to you about Emma."

"Not you too," Jax mumbled darkly, bracing himself for the shit storm for the second time that day.

"What?" Otto looked perplexed.

"I already got a talking to from Piney," Jax complained, slumping down onto the bed. "But let's hear it…"

Otto chuckled, "Oh, you think I'm here to give you a dressing down about whatever went down at the party? Nah," he said, finally lighting up the cigarette he had been worrying creases in. "You're a smart kid, Jax. You know better than to treat that girl like a croweater and you're also smart enough to realize that if you do you're gonna rain a hell down on yourself the likes of which you ain't ever seen before."

Otto's tone was congenial, pleasant even but there was an edge to his words that Jax read loud and clear. Jesus, he had to stay the hell away from Emma before he was singing in a soprano from now on out. "So, what's up then?" he asked, suddenly worried. "She okay?"

"Unser's watching out for her in there. She's fine. Look, we're calling Church in a few minutes… why don't I just tell you there."

"Sure," Jax agreed, grabbing his kutte. "I'll follow you down."

Calling church two days in a row was a rarity. The last time Jax could remember it happening was several years back in the middle of some shit with the Mayans. Clay had the gavel in his hand and cigar clenched between his teeth. "So, Rosen stopped by and filled us in on the situation with our girl."

Despite the uncertainty that some of the guys had expressed at the table the day before they all cared about Emma. She had grown up with these men, each becoming an uncle to her as the years went by. True, the club came before everything and that sometimes had to include old ladies or their children but that didn't make it any less true that they all cared deeply for her.

"Rosen says it ain't looking good," Clay continued, a steady stream of smoke from his cigar curling up towards the ceiling. "The prosecution is going to play on the fact that she had that knife in her room and was premeditating this shit. Never mind the fact that she probably knew this asshole was going to pull some funny uncle shit on her at some point. So, Big Otto here came up with a little bit of a solution…" he trailed off, gesturing towards Otto to continue.

"Look," Otto said, leaning his elbows onto the redwood and looking around the table. "What I want to do is send Tig, Jax and Opie up to Oregon. I was thinking we could pay our friend Robert Tarmark a visit and see if we can't… _convince_ him that it's in his best interest to come clean about his little indiscretions."

Tig broke out in a big grin, "Sure thing, man. Just tell us where to go."

Otto smiled, a slow grin that spread across his face in a way that was equally as scary as Tig's quick one. "I've got the prospect working on digging up where they've got this scum bag and once he's nailed down a location, I was thinking you boys could get a move on. The sooner this shit is laid to rest the better."


	10. Heathen's Kiss

**Authors Note: **Soooo sorry for the late update. My apologies! This chapter is a little short because I wanted to get something up for you guys to make up my slacking. I took a vacation with my mister and writing was the _last_ thing on my mind. No more, though. Stay tuned for regularly scheduled updates. That's an (almost) promise. XOXO, Niki

**xxx**

Emma sat across the table from Special Agent Kohn From the FBI. Anytime this asshole entered a room he announced himself by his full title, almost like he was still shocked that he had somehow made it into the FBI. She had taken to referring to him as such whenever she thought of him. It was just a little bit of humor that kept her going when the outlook was incredibly bleak.

"Ms. Reid," Agent Kohn said, glancing up finally from the file about an inch and a half thick in front of him. "You've got quite the history."

Emma gave him what she hoped was a self-assured smile. "I think it just makes me a little bit more interesting, personally."

The agent gave her a patronizing smile, like the kind one might give a child had just fingerpainted their first 'masterpiece' in great big blobs of yellow and blue paint. She decided immediately that she absolutely hated that smile. "Ms. Reid, or may I call you Emma?"

"I don't care," she said. She wasn't sure who she was trying to fool with the air of nonchalance she was desperately trying to pull off. She was sure that it was most likely for her own benefit. She wasn't sure she had ever been quite so nervous in her entire life. Her whole future was lying between them; there was a chance that she wasn't going to see the light of day for a long fucking time and it scared the hell out of her.

"Emma," he said and there was something about the way that he spit her name out in his oily, slick way that made her uncomfortable. It was like he was tasting the word before he said it. "Emma, you've been bouncing between foster homes and group facilities since you were fourteen. You racked up quite an impressive number of foster homes in only four years. Why do you think that is?"

Emma's mouth pulled back into a grimace, the way he spoke to her as though she were a particularly stupid child was really starting to grate on her nerves. "I don't know, Special Agent. Perhaps you need to ask the state of California why they kept placing me in spectacularly shitty places."

Kohn leaned back and gave her a wide smile, "Oh, come on now. Let's not place the blame with others. One or two bad placements sometimes happen, unfortunately. No system is perfect. But seventeen is a rather impressive number. After the first two maybe you should have taken a step back and evaluated what it was about you that made these placements fail."

Emma's hands balled into fists underneath the table. She had an overwhelming urge to let one fly at this asshole's face. Unfortunately, she had inherited her father's quick temper and this motherfucker was pressing _all_ of her buttons. "Or maybe those assholes at social services should take a step back and wonder what's wrong with their system," she spat. "I had a family, a big one who was willing to take care of me just like I was their own child. Instead the state of California decided that they knew what was best for me and it supposedly wasn't the people I knew and trusted."

That stupid, half smile on the agent's face never faltered and Emma had to struggle against the urge to wipe that fucking smirk off of his face.

"The family you're referring to? I understand that your father is a member of criminal organization and most of his associates are members of the same organization," the agent sneered. "It's understandable that the state removed you from that situation."

Emma ground her teeth, trying hard not to say anything that would put her in an even worse position but she was starting to admit to herself that she might be in a little over her head. This man was looking at her like she was a bug underneath of a microscope. "Criminal organization?" she spat, her temper flaring. "There's nothing criminal about my father _or_ my uncles… they're just a bunch of guys who happen to like riding motorcycles. What next? Demonizing fantasy football leagues? Come _on_."

Kohn gave her a patronizing smile, "I find it hard to believe that you're this naïve, Ms. Reid. I'm afraid that you just can't lead me to believe that you had no knowledge of the type of organization that your father was a part of."

Emma's balled up fists underneath of the table clenched so hard that her fingernails bit into the sensitive skin of her palms but before she could do anything that probably would have ended with charges for assaulting a federal agent there was a knock.

Kohn's face pinched and he sighed, pushing his chair back from the table and slipping outside. He was only gone for a few minutes and when he came back his mouth was pinched into a thin, tight line.

"Emma," he said, sitting back down and leaning across the table towards her. "You have so much to offer. There's no reason for you to waste your life like this. You don't have to follow in your father's footsteps blindly."

"I'm not," she bit off her words, keeping them short and clipped and then clamping her teeth shut. He was pushing at her and pushing at her and she didn't trust herself not to land in even more hot water by saying or doing something that would rack up more charges.

"You are." Kohn's whole demeanor had changed. He didn't have that smug smirk on his face, now he just looked desperate. "You can turn this around, we can give you a better life. What is there for you with the Sons of Anarchy? A life as a… what do they call it, pass around? Maybe an old lady if you're lucky. I know what goes on in these clubs and they are no place for a beautiful young woman like you. Your future with them is grim, outside of the club's grasp you could be anything."

"And how exactly can you give me a better life?" Emma ground out. "Because I thought the state of California was supposed to be 'giving me a better life' and all they did was throw me in foster home after foster home where I was perved on, had the shit beaten out of me and got treated like a piece of trash. What? You want to put me in witness protection, send me to Boca Raton or something to live happily ever after? Well, I have news for you, I am _living_ my happily ever after, asshole."

Agent Kohn sighed, ran a weary hand over his face and steepled his fingers on the table. "You're free to go."

Emma couldn't speak for a moment. She was having trouble processing what he had just said. "Free to go?"

"Yes. The complainant has recanted his story. In fact, I believe they're charging him with attempted rape." Kohn's mouth puckered in distaste, as though the words themselves were sour coming out of his mouth.

He had been so close, he was almost certain that with a little more pressure, a few more threats, she would have flipped on the Sons of Anarchy. She was young, impressionable, and obviously terrified. But had had underestimated the steel backbone that Connor Reid had instilled in his daughter. Underestimated the club's loyalty to its members, even those currently incarcerated.

Someone had put the pressure to his witness, he was sure of that. And with every step Emma took towards the door he could feel that coveted position with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms slipping through his fingers.

"Oh, and Emma?" he asked, feeling his way back onto sure footing , a place where he felt like he had the upper hand. "Please say hello to Mr. Taylor for me, would you?"

Emma came to a dead stop and her eyes widened. "Jonny?" she hissed, "What the fuck do you know about Jonny?"

Agent Kohn shrugged, the smirk that she had come to loathe back on his face like it had never left.

**xxx**

The rumble of the engine of his bike had a calming effect on Jax as they put Oregon behind them. It hadn't been hard to make this asshole crack and part of him was relieved that it had been a quick in-and-out job but there was another part of him that was a little disappointed. He had been looking forward to putting hands on this asshole after everything that he had done to Emma. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't escape images of Emma as she had been in the pictures he'd stumbled across. He couldn't help but wonder if it had been him or some asshole like him who had put hands on her and left her a bruised mess.

Either way, it wouldn't have hurt him none to take some of his frustrations out on that bastard's face. He hadn't even left home, that's how self-assured this asshole was that Emma wasn't a threat to him. He had turned down the safe house that had been offered to him until the trial, preferring to stay at home where he was comfortable.

There was supposed to be a cop watching the house all night but it hadn't been long before the young rookie had taken off somewhere more exciting. The street was quiet and it had been since he'd been posted there a week ago. It wasn't likely that anything would happen and this wasn't what he'd joined the force to do… sit outside some potential perverts front door and make sure he felt as snug as a bug in a rug.

And once he was nothing but a set of taillights in the distance, Jax and Opie and Tig had pulled their bikes right up into Robert Tarmark's driveway. The man had practically shit himself when Jax and Opie had come in from the front and again when Tig had slipped in through the back door.

It had taken nothing more than a few meaningful threats to his manhood and a right hook from Opie that knocked the man down to the ground and had made him pretty willing to reach an understanding with them.

They'd stayed close until they had gotten a call from Clay letting them know that Tarmark had recanted his statement. He'd practically begged the police officer to arrest him for attempted rape, from what Clay had gathered from Rosen.

They were releasing Emma that afternoon and Jax would be lying to himself if he denied that he was hoping they made it back in time. He couldn't shake his preoccupation with her, even though he knew that it couldn't ever go anywhere. Staying away from her had become difficult, if not impossible.

When they reached Charming city limits, they finally slowed down and the three men road single file back to the clubhouse. Unser's squad car was parked in front of the Teller-Morrow offices and Jax felt his stomach flip. If Unser was there it was likely that Emma had already been released.

"Jax," Opie cautioned when they had killed the motors of their bikes and were removing their helmets. "Don't."

It was a simple statement but Jax knew that he was referring to whatever was going on with himself and Emma. Opie was echoing what Jax himself had been thinking about only a few minutes earlier.

Emma was off-limits. She had to be. The only thing he could for that girl was drag her down into the shit with him. "I know, man," he muttered, hanging his helmet on the T-bar handles. "Preaching to the choir, brother."

Before Opie could respond, the door to the office burst open and Emma stomped into the parking lot. She was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and a tank top with one of Gemma's old flannels hanging open over her shoulders. Her eyes cut around the parking lot and when they landed on Jax and Opie, he could see that she was practically spitting nails. Her hands were clenched into two small fists at her side and if Jax wasn't absolutely positive that he would end up with a split lip out of the deal he would have called her cute.

She reminded him of the feral kittens that sometimes hung around the place in the spring. They were tiny little fluff balls who were full of spit and vinegar and postured themselves like they were fucking mountain lions. That's what she reminded him of at the moment but verbalizing that would probably get him a right hook straight in the mouth.

"One of you, please give me a ride home," she said, through clenched teeth.

Before Opie could answer, Jax threw her his helmet. "Get on, darlin'."

She was rigid behind him for a few moments before she relaxed against his back. It was a short ride to Jax's old place and before he could even kill the engine Emma was off the bike and running towards the front door. She fitted her key into the lock and threw the door open, surveying the damage to the living room.

There was a bag of chips, half of them spilled out, laying on the ottoman and a pile of blankets still at one end of the couch. There were cans of Coke all over every available surface and when she picked one up, it was practically still cold; that and the fact that the TV was still blaring some stupid reality TV show on MTV told her that she Jonny had been here only a few hours ago.

"Where the hell are you, you little asshole!" she snarled, stalking through the rooms. She was pushing into the garage when Jax caught up with her.

"What's goin' on, Ems?" he asked, his hand fluttering around the hilt of his kabar knife.

"That stupid fucking asshole," she hissed, "He shows up here and my life goes to shit."

Jax put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him, "I'm not following you, Emma. What does this have to do with your… boyfriend?"

He wasn't sure what Jonny was to Emma but he judging by what he walked in on last week he was pretty sure that boyfriend might be a safe guess.

"He is _not_ my boyfriend," she said, her voice rough with anger. "That asshole is a friend from the system, nothing more and now not even a friend. When I was being processed out that asshole fucking agent from the FBI told me to say hello to Jonny Taylor."

"Shit," Jax breathed. Together, they searched the entire house but it was empty, Jonny was gone. He had sold her out to the fucking feds and then he had disappeared. Emma snapped off the television and stood in the middle of the mess he had left behind, seething.

"I'm sorry," she said, finally. Throwing her hands up and then letting them settle at her hips.

"Sorry for what?" he asked, steering her towards the couch and setting her down before kneeling down in front of her. She had been through acres of shit in the past week and he was worried she was about to completely snap on him. He wanted to keep the destruction to a minimum.

"Sorry for everything. Sorry for dragging the club into my fucking jacked up life," she sighed, resting her forehead in the palm of her hands and taking a few quick deep breathes. "This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I came back here. I just wanted… something familiar. Something that felt like home, finally. And do I even want to know what you guys did to get that asshole to come clean?"

Jax grinned at her, grabbing the end of her ponytail that hung over one shoulder and giving it a tug, something familiar that he had done when she had been a child. "Not much," he said, honestly. "It didn't take a whole hell of a lot to get that fuck to break. I think Tig was a little disappointed."

That at least elicited a laugh from her and Jax was once again struck by the fact that her smile could do things to him that it shouldn't be doing. Without thinking, he leaned forward and grabbed her chin with one hand, bringing her mouth to his. The kiss was short and deep before Emma pushed him away.

Her blue eyes were hard, "You've got to stop that," she said, voice firm.

Jax sighed, rocking back on his heels and running a calloused hand down his face. "I know, I know. I don't know…" He knew he couldn't keep kissing her every time he found himself alone with her but there was something about her that had worked its way into his head and he'd be damned if he could stop himself.

"I'm not a sweetbutt, Jax," she said and her voice was hard but her eyes were curious as they searched his face. "I'm not saying I want to be your Old Lady or any shit like that but I'm also not going to drop my panties for you like every other bitch with a pussy around the clubhouse. I'm not sorry for what happened the night I was arrested but I'm not going to keep doing this with you."

Even though he had at least four years on her in age, he couldn't help but feel like their roles had been reversed. Emma had grown up hard and rough and as a result, she had the maturity that came with someone much older. He suddenly felt like an immature teenager.

"That's not what I'm tryin' to do, darlin'," he said, but he was at a loss to explain to her what he _was _doing. He was walking a dangerous line with her and had had a feeling that if he toed it too much he wasn't going to like the consequences.

"Then what _are_ you trying to do?" she pressed, leaning forward and he wished that she hadn't. Her dark hair swinging around her face and the neck of her shirt dipping down just enough to give him a glimpse of her cleavage weren't helping him articulate much of anything.

"Honestly, darlin'… I'm not really sure. I told you at the jail—."

Emma cut him off, "I know what you told me at the jail, Jax. And I meant what I said then too. I'm not looking to be your Old Lady. And even though I'm sure it would be a good time, hopping into bed with you would be a mistake of epic proportions."

Jax couldn't keep the wolfish grin from spreading over his face, "You're damn right it would be a good time."

Emma rolled her eyes, "Jax, focus. Look, I don't care why you kissed me the night I was picked up, I don't care why you kissed me in PD lockup and I don't even care why you kissed me now but this isn't a road that I wanna go down, okay? So stop. Just… stop."

She was lying to herself even if she didn't want to admit it, especially not to him. She didn't want him to stop and she had enjoyed every fucking minute of it. Whatever this was, that was happening between them scared the shit out of her. This wasn't just the last vestiges of her childhood crush on Jackson Teller it was something that went beyond that. He had changed just as much as she had in the years she was gone; no longer was there a gangly boy feeling out the last of his teenage years. Sitting in front of her was a man who had earned his back patch with blood and bullets. Just the same as her daddy had earned his.

So deep in thought, she was, that she didn't hear the back door cracking open. Jax did, though, his instincts honed through years of being a Son. In one quick movement he was on his feet and standing in front of her. She was on her feet but Jax threw an arm out to keep her behind him as he pulled his Glock 17 from the waistband of his pants and flicked the safety off.

Gesturing to Emma to stay back he crossed silently into the kitchen, moving as slowly as he could to the back door. Emma couldn't see anything from her vantage point but she heard a muffled yell and the door slamming open and shut. When Jax returned a few moments later, he was red faced and huffing. The gun was still clenched tight in his fist but he had his other hand clenched in Jonny's t-shirt, dragging into the living room.

Jonny collapsed on the floor on his hands and knees and before Jax could stop her, Emma bolted forward and kicked him as hard as she could, a swift blow to the ribs. She managed to land another two kicks before Jax pushed her back on to the couch.

Leaning down he yanked the younger man up by the roots of his hair until he was kneeling in the middle of the living room.

"You're bleeding on my carpet," Emma sneered, itching to give him another few kicks.

"Do I look like I give a shit right now?" Jonny snapped. He had never been this terrified in his entire life. The barrel of a gun was pressed against his temple by the asshole that had come to Emma's door that first night that he had shown up in Charming. He had been in a lot of shit before, a _lot_, but he had somehow managed to work his way out of it before it got this serious. And if his aching ribs were any indicator, he couldn't rely on Emma to call of her guard dog. "What the hell is going on?"

Emma felt a thrill of satisfaction run through her when she recognized his fear. Once, she had cared a whole hell of a lot about this asshole. Once. Now, she just felt empty and numb. She should have known that someone like Jonny would sell her out to the feds in a heartbeat if there was something in it for him. She should have been more suspicious when he suddenly blew into Charming and landed on her doorstep.

She shouldn't have brought this home to the club. But here it was, bleeding on her living room floor and it was up to her to set this straight. She wasn't about to let Jax clean up her mess. No, she would do that herself.

"What the hell is going on?" she snapped, circling him. "What the hell is going on is I get hauled up by the feds and when I'm being processed out the fuckin' pig tells me to say hello to you. _Why_ is some fucking federal agent telling me to say hello to _you_? I'd think real quick and come up with one hell of an answer if I were you, motherfucker."

Jonny laughed, "Let me guess," he said, rocking back farther on his heels so that he could look Emma in the eyes. "Was it Joshua Kohn?"

Emma's eyes narrowed, he wasn't helping himself stay alive by laughing. "Yeah. Now you're wasting minutes here, kid. You've got about one left to tell me why some fucking dick federal agent knows who the hell you are and more important why he knows that you know who I am. And if I don't like your answer by the end of that minute I'm going to put a bullet between your eyes myself."

Jax pressed the gun harder into Jonny's temple. "I suggest you start talking."

"Can I at least stand up?" he asked, turning to face Emma. She shrugged her shoulders and he staggered to his feet acting as though Jax had put more of a hurting on him than he actually had. If he were hoping for her sympathy vote, he wasn't going to get it.

Emma stepped closer, her hands in fists on her hips. "Seriously, asshole, the clock is ticking here. The longer you drag this out the more-."

She didn't get an opportunity to finish her sentence because before she could react she'd caught an elbow to her nose. The pain came in a wave that knocked the air out of her lungs and she staggered, finally coming down to rest on her knees on the carpet. Her hands had flown up to cover her nose and she realized that her palms were already full of blood.

Shit.

She glanced up through her hazy, swimming vision to see Jonny and Jax struggling over his gun. It swung around dangerously and she at least had the presence of mind to scoot back behind the ottoman just in case it were to go off while it was pointed in her direction. Squeezing her nostrils closed in a futile attempt to staunch the flow of blood, she heard the sharp crack of gunfire.

Wriggling out from behind the ottoman, she saw Jax down on one knee and a trail of blood leading from the living room to the back door. "Emma?" Jax yelled, his voice sounded like it was floating up to her through water, though the pain from her broken nose was beginning to recede.

"I'm fine," she mumbled, her voice sounding off to her own ringing ears.

Jax reached for the hilt of his kabar knife and yanked it out of the sheath, pressing the blade into her hand. "If he comes back you stab that motherfucker as hard as you can, okay?"

Before she could even nod, he was gone. She could hear the back door slam and knew that Jax was going to finish what he had started. Before the sun went down, Jonny would be dead and she couldn't say that she was going to be too upset about that. Not when she was sitting in a pool of blood in her own living room, cupping her hands around her broken nose.

**xxx**

Agent Joshua Kohn sighed, leaning back in the leather executive chair he'd had delivered to Charming PD. It was quaint, in a way, the low-tech way these people lived. But where he was from, he was used to getting a few more amenities than these backwoods local yokels could provide.

He had been almost positive that once the pressure was on Emma Reid would flip on the Sons of Anarchy. Unfortunately, he'd underestimated the pull the club had; not just on its own members but their family too.

His only other hope Jonny Taylor and he was not holding his breath where that kid had been concerned. When Jonny's name had started popping up in the dossier Kohn was keeping on Emma Reid, he had not thought very much of it. But when Emma had dropped off the map, he had needed an 'in' so to speak. Oh, he wasn't an idiot and he knew where she would run. Right back to the club and Charming.

But he was not about to blow his case wide open by waltzing into Charming with a smile and a badge. Plenty of other agents had made that mistake and none of them had managed the big bust.

And once Jonny had landed himself back in juvenile lock up, Kohn had started to consider the possibilities of using him as that 'in'. The boy and Emma had been close and if flipping Emma hadn't worked he had considered having the boy Prospect the club. It would take longer to do things that way but he could be a patient man when he needed to be.

Now, had had a feeling that his chances of working that angle were shot to shit too. He had lost his temper with Emma and now he might be paying the price for that oversight. He never should have dropped the kid's name but watching her walk out of that station free and clear had gotten his ire up.

Sighing again, Kohn ran a hand down his face and stared down at the open file on his desk. Emma, four years younger and smiling, stared up at him. He was still convinced that she was the club's weakest link. Her only tie to the MC was her father and he was doing time in prison.

Maybe all was not lost and he could put the screws to Emma using her father as collateral. There were a lot of ways that Kohn could make prison life that much worse for her father.

The problem was going to be finding another opportunity alone with Emma Reid. But he would find it, he had to. This could be his only opportunity to prove himself again after the embarrassment of Portland. But if he played his hand expertly, that ATF position might be his after all.


	11. I Need Your Skull

**AUTHORS NOTE:** First of all, I apologize so much for the lateness of this chapter. School started for me in August and it has been kicking my ass hard. So, this chapter is just a little bit shorter than usual but I wanted to get something up soon. I'm hoping to fall back into something of a routine now that I've had some time to adjust to classes. Blah blah blah. Feedback gives me the warm & fuzzies so let me know what you think! XOXO

**xxx**

"Emma?" the front door crashed closed behind Jax and his eyes darted over the overturned ottoman in the living room, looking for her.

"In here," she called from the kitchen, her voice muffled. She was perched on the counter top, holding a tea towel to her still bleeding nose, the ka-bar knife that he'd given to her lay next to her. He slid it back into its sheath before pulling the towel away from her nose, gently.

"Alright," he said, tilting her head back. "Let's see how bad it is."

Emma stopped him, pushing his hand away from her. "Is he dead?" she asked, bluntly. She wasn't really sure which answer she wanted. She was pissed to all hell, even more so now that she'd spent the last twenty minutes trying to staunch the flow of blood from her broken nose. But no matter how much she wanted nothing more than to have put a bullet in Jonny herself, she couldn't deny that there had been good times with the asshole. He'd been her saving grace in the system more times than she could count.

But in the system, you learned one thing quickly: to watch your own back. No one else would do it for you. That's why she shouldn't have been so surprised when Jonny had flipped on her to that asshole federal agent. He was doing what he did best, watching out for himself.

"No," Jax said, through clenched teeth. "The fucker is fast and he got too much of a head start. I lost him."

Emma's face was a mess of conflicting emotions that Jax chose mostly to ignore. He didn't know what had gone down between her and Jonny, didn't know how close they were but he did know the way it twisted a person up inside to want to see someone you might have trusted and cared about once dead. Dead by your own hand, especially.

"I really think you need to go to St. Thomas and get that looked at," Jax said, uneasily eyeing Emma's broken nose. The damage wasn't as bad as some he had seen on his brothers in the past but this was Emma. She wasn't a patch who fully expected to come home with some battle wounds every once in a while and he knew the kind of pain she had to be in at the moment.

Emma rolled her eyes at him, holding the towel tighter to her nose. "That's the worst idea I've ever heard, Jax," she said, her broken nose making her voice sound stuffy. "First, I fucking hate hospitals. Second, I fucking hate hospitals and last, I'm not going to do anything that might make this blow back on the club any more than it already has."

"So, you lie," Jax said, firmly. "You tell them that you fell down or some shit like that." He was growing impatient with her, especially when it was becoming more and more difficult to staunch the flow of blood coming from her nose.

"Yes," Emma said from behind the towel, "And that will go over so well when I'm being escorted through the front doors by the fucking SAMCRO vice president with the blood stains all over his shirt and the bruised knuckles." She gestured with one bloody hand at him and Jax glanced down.

He hated to admit it but she might have had a point. His white SAMCRO t-shirt had blood splatter down the front of it and he hadn't noticed it before but his knuckles had begun to bruise and turn red.

"Fine," he said, "Alright, so I don't go in with you."

Emma sighed from behind the towel, "Just set my fucking nose, Jax. I know you know how. You set Opie's when we were kids."

The only time Jax and Opie had ever scrapped it had been over some pussy. They had been sophomores in high school and they'd both been drawn in by the same gash. They'd taken it out on each other behind the garage and Jax had broken Opie's nose with a well-aimed punch. Both boys had been absolutely terrified of Gemma and Piney finding out that they'd been fighting over some bitch and the ensuing lecture of brothers before pussy would last hours. She'd watched intently as Opie had grimaced and hollered while Jax had snapped his nose back into place.

Jax sighed, ran a hand over his face and clenched his teeth. He didn't want to do this but Emma was as stubborn as her father and if she didn't want to go to the hospital, then he knew she wasn't going to go. She'd sit here and bleed for hours on the kitchen floor just out of spite. She had an Irish temper on her and when she dug her heels in he'd long ago learned that it was better to just give in and save himself a whole shitload of hassle.

"Fine," Jax snapped, pulling the towel away from her face. He honestly didn't remember much about how he had set Opie's nose that day. All he could remember was that he'd been scared shitless than Gemma or Piney would find out that they'd been fighting.

Taking a deep breath, Jax readied himself and Emma closed her eyes. In a second, it was over, and as the bleeding was already beginning to slow down he figured he must have done something right.

Emma's eyes were still closed, clenched just as tightly as her teeth. Jax wet a paper towel at the sink behind him and gently began to scrub the blood off of Emma's face and neck. It bothered him to see her covered in blood, even if it was her own and even if it wasn't from some terrible wound.

It bothered him in ways he didn't really want to delve too deeply into.

"Hey," he said softly, his hands finding her fingers and unclenching them from the edge of the counter top. "Hey, it's done. I'm done. Are you okay?"

When she didn't speak, Jax started to worry that he had put her in worse pain than the broken nose had caused. He was no fuckin' doctor. How was he supposed to know if he'd done it right or not?

"Emma?" he asked again and there was just a hint of anxiety in his voice. "Say something?"

Emma's eyes cracked open and she gingerly touched the bridge of her nose. "Ow," she hissed.

Jax couldn't help but laugh and draw her in for a careful hug. "What am I gonna do with you, kid?" he mumbled against her hair, almost too soft for her to hear him.

xxx

Emma's nose still ached, a dull pain that radiated up her jaw and settled just behind her eyes. She knew that in the matter of a few hours she would have a couple shiners to go along with her swollen nose. But at least she didn't have to set foot into St. Thomas.

She hadn't walked into a hospital by choice since the day her mother had died and if she had anything to say about it she wouldn't again.

Jax had left shortly after he'd cleaned her blood off of his hands. He needed to go and fill the club in on the situation with Jonny and she sighed, curling up into herself and tugging her blankets farther over her head. She hadn't been back in town long and she'd already brought a ton of baggage onto the club's doorstep. That wasn't going to sit well with Clay, she knew. The club had enough bullshit of their own to deal with without her heaping on an extra serving with a federal agent on top. It had never been her intention to draw the club into her own mess but somehow, it had landed right on her doorstep and theirs too.

There had been no way she could have predicted what would follow her home. Although, a nagging voice inside of her said that if she had just sent Jonny on his way the minute he showed up at her doorstep, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

Maybe if she'd just kept her mouth shut, period. But no, she'd been so lonely and homesick in the beginning that all she did was talk about Charming. Anyone paying even a little bit of attention would have known just where to find her once she'd fallen off the grid.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Emma willed herself to sleep. There was a whole lot of guilt and blame to sift through and her head just wasn't in the right place for that. Maybe once she woke up, a little more clear headed, she could put this behind her and try to move on. There were no more ghosts following her home.

Emma was almost asleep when she heard the front door crack open and heavy footsteps in the hallway. She froze, her whole body coiled and ready for some new bullshit to rain itself down on her.

Slipping out of bed as quietly as she could, she reached for the steel baseball bat she kept beside the bedroom door. It was a relic from another time that she'd uncovered amongst her father's things. They'd stopped using metal bats out of safety concerns back in the early 90s. As quietly as she could, Emma tucked herself behind the bedroom door, bat cocked back in her fists.

When she heard the fucker stepping through the bedroom door, she swung herself out from behind it and swung the bat as hard as she could. She could hear the asshole swearing and the dull thud of the bat making contact with flesh.

The intruder reached out and flicked on the light switch and Emma cursed loudly as she found herself face to face with Jax, who was muttering a string of curses and rubbing his throbbing shoulder.

"Shit, Emma," he barked, "What were you trying to do? Kill me? Jesus Christ!"

Emma felt the blood rush to her cheeks, "Shit, I'm sorry… I thought—," she trailed off and crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly aware that all she was wearing was one of her more threadbare wife beaters and a pair of panties. "What the fuck were you doing creeping into my bedroom in the middle of the night without turning a goddamn light on!" she growled.

Jax froze, still rubbing his sore shoulder. If she'd been just a few inches more accurate with that bat he probably wouldn't even be conscious right now. Emma's eyes flashed with that familiar Irish temper he could remember seeing in Connors before a particularly nasty bar fight.

And she did have him dead to rights. After everything Emma had been through in the last four years and especially after what she'd been through today, creeping into the house unannounced was probably not the smartest move he'd ever made.

"Just wanted to check on you," Jax muttered, working his shoulder around in its socket to make sure that everything was still in good working condition. "I wasn't expecting you to go all Babe Ruth on me."

Emma led him out into the living room and sat him down on the couch while she rummaged through the freezer and found a package of frozen peas. She tossed that over to Jax who caught it with his good arm.

"I'm fine," she said, rubbing her hands up and down her suddenly chilly shoulders. "Just trying to get some sleep. So, how pissed off was Clay at church tonight?"

Jax rolled his eyes, for all the ways it seemed like Emma had never left Charming there were so many more ways that made it painfully obvious the shit she'd gone through for the past four years. "How many times to do I have to tell you that this is your family, Ems. We do for family around here. Your shit is our shit. We're not gonna leave a Patch's daughter out to dry and this shit with Jonny and Kohn isn't any worse than anything one of us has been in."

"So he was pissed," she said, bluntly, reading between the lines.

"Yeah," Jax admitted. "He was pissed but you gotta understand that he wasn't pissed at you. He was pissed at this shit you've had to go through alone. We all were."

Emma rolled her eyes, "I never meant to bring this shit to the club, Jax. I probably shouldn't have come here."

Jax's good arm shot out, gripping her chin firmly in his palm he turned her face up so that he could look into her eyes. "Bullshit!" he spat, vehementlyl. "Charming is your home. Do you know how many people were worried sick about you when you stopped calling and writing? Huh? Charming is where you belong."

Changing the subject, Emma peeled the bag of frozen veggies away from Jax's shoulder. "How's your arm feel?"

Jax shrugged, "I've had much worse than what you can dish out, darlin'." He slid his kutte off his shoulders and grabbed the hem of his white t-shirt, pulling it up and over his head so that he could inspect the damage.

Emma's heart caught in her throat and she swallowed hard. This was a situation that she wasn't entirely prepared for: a half-naked Jax in her kitchen in the middle of the night.

There was a decent sized red mark spreading across his shoulder that she didn't doubt would turn into an angry looking bruise over the next few days.

She couldn't stop herself, she reached out and touched the bruising skin with the tips of her fingers. He winced and she drew back her hand as though she had been burned. "Sorry."

"No," Jax said, drawing her fingers back to his chest, "It's fine, darlin'."

"Keep icing that," she said finally. Emma could feel her cheeks warming up with embarrassment. Somehow, her voice had betrayed her, coming out breathy sounding.

Jax grinned, that panty-dropping grin of his, and he pressed the bag of veggies back to his shoulder. "You're one to talk," he said, and his fingers reached out to brush the swollen knot of her nose. "How are you feeling? Did I set it right?"

Emma nodded, withdrawing from his touch. She would be lying to herself if she didn't at least admit that whatever was going on here, in the dark with Jax, didn't scare the shit out of her. Emma had developed a thick skin and a deep seated desire to never need another human being and here she was, practically losing her shit because Jax had touched her face.

"It feels fine," she said, finally, lying through her teeth. There was a dull ache between her eyes that felt like the worst sinus pressure that she'd ever experienced. It hurt, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as it had earlier.

"So," she said, finally, trying to break the awkward silence that had fallen across their shoulders like a blanket. "You were telling me about Church."

Jax nodded, shaking his head more to break himself out of dangerous thoughts about how beautiful Emma looked with the moonlight coming in through the kitchen window and falling across her hair. "Yeah. We talked about this shit with the kid… we think it's best to let him run. If he's in bed with the feds it's probably a good thing that I didn't find him this afternoon. We fuck around with him and we're bringing a whole helluva lot of suspicion down on our heads. And he's gotta know by now that he'd be an idiot to show his face back in Charming. I think don't think he's going to come back anytime soon."

Emma nodded, mulling it over for a moment. As much as she wanted Jonny's head on a fucking platter right now, she knew Jax was right. He was obviously working with Kohn and him turning up missing was going to put a big red bullseye on the back of Samcro.

"But anyway," he said, throwing the now melted back of veggies into the sink. "I was thinking I'd sleep here tonight. Just in case he is stupid enough to show his face."

Emma's face blanched; all the blood draining out of her cheeks. "I don't really think that's a good idea—," she stuttered.

"Look, Em," Jax said, seriously. His hands rested on her shoulders briefly before sliding down her upper arms and holding tight. "I'm not trying to—all I'm saying is that we don't know where the fuck Jonny is right now. You know him better than I do, I guess but for all I know he's going to double back and don't shit yourself that this place isn't easy to break into. He's desperate right now and desperate men do some stupid shit."

He was right, she _did _know Jonny better than he did. Or at least, she used to think she did. But she really hadn't seen any of this shit coming. If she had, she never would have opened the door to him that first night. Shit, if she'd known that he'd flip on a dime she would have kept her mouth shut and avoided the hell out of him all those years ago at the group home.

"Fine," she begrudged, mostly because she knew that Jax was a stubborn motherfucker when he wanted to be and the likelihood that she was going to get her way was getting slimmer and slimmer. "But you're sleeping on the couch."

**xxx**

"Mornin' baby," Gemma leaned over, giving Emma a kiss on the forehead. Emma slid into a barstool and rested her head against her palm.

"I'm so fuckin' tired," she groaned. Sleep had been difficult, to say the least, with Jax in the next room. She'd given up denying that she was attracted to him. She was, there was no way around that. But it didn't matter because she was sure as shit not going there. Hooking up with Jax, even once, would be a disaster.

She was sure of it.

Gemma cut her a sideways glance, "Should I ask why you're so tired or should I just assume?" The older woman slid a cup of coffee in front of Emma, who gratefully took a gulp of the bitter, black liquid.

"I'm tired," Emma said pointedly, "Because some asshole I thought I could trust stabbed me in the back and punched me in the nose," she retorted, a little sharper than she'd meant to.

She really wasn't in the mood to have Mama Bear riding her ass this morning, wondering if she'd spent the night riding Jax's dick.

"Mmmhmm," Gemma muttered under her breath, still regarding Emma with suspicion. She wasn't a stupid woman, not by any stretch of the imagination. She couldn't be to be the Head Bitch in Charge around this place. Give those croweaters an inch and they'd take a mile. Slip up for a second and one of them has your old man's dick in her mouth.

So the look on Jax's face when she caught him watching Emma hadn't escaped her. Her baby boy might not want to admit it yet, but he'd gotten strung out on some pussy he hadn't even tasted yet.

As far as she knew, anyway.

And she knew she had to keep him from tasting that forbidden fruit too, for the sake of the club. Fortunately, not many of the patches had children and those that did had boys. Boys were easy, these men knew what to do with sons.

Tig had two daughters but they were long gone with their mother, that slut. Probably better off that way, Gemma couldn't really imagine Tig dealing with a kid at all, let alone a daughter.

Jax had enough to deal with… getting rid of that crank slut who was probably knocked up with his kid, for starters. Getting involved with anyone, especially Emma would be stupid.

And once her father found out… shit. For Jax's sake, she'd have to hope that Connor stayed locked up for a while. A patch fucking another patch's daughter was the kind of shit that tore apart clubs. And she wasn't about to let the club—her family—fall apart because her son couldn't keep his dick in his pants.

"Saw the crank slut the other day," Gemma said, off hand. "She's starting to show."

Emma was still sipping her coffee, her eyes glazed over. But Gemma could see the spark of interest that try as she might, Emma couldn't keep off of her face. "Oh yeah?"

"Mmhmm," Gemma pulled herself up on a barstool next to the little girl she'd all but raised as her own. "Guess I might as well start accepting that this bitch is giving me a grandbaby."

The thought made Gemma's stomach turn. She wanted a grandbaby, sure. What mother didn't? But the idea of Wendy being in their lives until the kid was legal was almost unbearable. And who knew what the hell that bitch was doing and if she'd stopped taking the crank. For all she knew, that baby could be born with two heads.

Emma shrugged, draining the last of the coffee from her mug. "Um, okay, Gemma," she said, raising an eyebrow. She wasn't exactly sure where Gemma was going with this, but if she didn't get a move on, she was going to be late.

"I've gotta go see a man about a job," she said, grabbing her messenger bag from the counter top beside her and swinging it over her shoulders. "Piney said I could borrow the tow truck… but I'll have it back in like an hour in case you have any repos you need done," she told the older woman before turning on her heels and hurrying out of the clubhouse.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the piece of junk Piney had had to tow home off of the interstate for her. It was still in pieces, more or less, and still a sore subject.

Climbing into the driver's side of the heavy, old tow truck she put the key in the ignition and listened as the engine rumbled to life. Piney and Gemma both had encouraged her to work at the garage. It would have been easier just to fall back into doing odd jobs for Gemma around the office and helping Piney or Lowell with the repos but she wanted—no, needed—to know that she could make it on her own.

And making it on her own meant earning on her own merit, not walking into a job that she had basically inherited because of her father was Samcro. A job where she was making _way_ more than minimum wage, not because she earned it but because she was a Samcro legacy.

Lost in thought, Emma didn't notice the nondescript, champagne colored sedan that creeped along the quiet street behind her. Agent Joshua Kohn pulled the car into a spot across the street and several feet behind Emma's truck and reached into a camera bag next to him, pulling out a Nikon. He focused the camera and pressed his fingers down onto the shutter and with a whir the camera began snapping off continuous shots.

Emma sitting behind the wheel, taking a deep breath with her fingers splayed out across the steering wheel.

Emma climbing out of the truck.

Emma brushing back a few stray strands of hair before she walked in, covertly using the tinted store windows as a makeshift mirror on her way in.

And later, Emma walking out with a smile on her face. Climbing back into the truck and pulling away from the curb.

He knew she was heading back to the Teller-Morrow garage; he couldn't follow her there. It was too dangerous for him there. These men didn't care about much of anything except the club and themselves, they wouldn't think twice before putting a bullet in his head. His badge wouldn't stop them.

It wasn't safe for Emma, either, he knew. But she wouldn't listen to reason. He'd tried to tell her that her father held but so much influence over this group of heathens that she had deluded herself into thinking cared about her like a family. He'd tried to warn her that if she outlived her usefulness or tried to move on with her life they would end her.

He wondered briefly if the bruises mottling Emma's beautiful face had anything to do with his informant's sudden disappearance. True, Jonny had never been very reliable and it wouldn't be unlike him to slip through the cracks and escape back into the anonymity of California's vast homeless population. He had never been very cooperative but Kohn could be pretty persuasive when necessary.

But, he had to consider that perhaps his outburst that day with Emma had bought Jonny a very different fate, the kind that ended with a shallow grave out in the desert somewhere. Maybe Emma had tried to protect her childhood friend and maybe it had earned her a smack from one of the men she thought of as uncle and brother.

He knew it wasn't above men like these to hit a woman, any woman.

Sighing, Kohn packed his equipment away and turned the car in the direction of the hotel he'd checked into just outside of town as a precaution. If he played this right, he thought for the hundredth time, if he managed to keep all of this from going sideways then maybe he still had a chance at closing the deal. Bringing down the Sons of Anarchy. Maybe he still had a chance of going somewhere, forgetting those little past indiscretions and starting over. And if he did this right, the bread would finally land jelly side up and he'd be well on his way to being an ATF agent. The bureau wouldn't care that he was technically AWOL right now, not if he brought down the club. The ATF had been trying to do the very same thing for years now and not once had they managed it.

But he knew that he could.

He had to.

And Emma was going to help him. He knew she would, once he could get her to see reason. He would just need to stay calm this time. He couldn't get angry, couldn't.

It would all go sideways if he got angry. It always did.


	12. Burn Your Life Down

**AUTHORS NOTE:** Sooo, a little more timely with this one, huh? It's a little shorter than my usual chapters but I think that's going to be the way of things while I'm in classes. Sorry! XOXO

**xxx**

Emma weaved her way between the throngs of croweaters and sweetbutts, gyrating to the music coming from the jukebox. When she reached the bar, she plopped down and let her head fall to the scarred wood countertop.

Without a word, Juice slid a shot of Jameson whiskey in front of her. She lifted her head just enough to suck back the shot and when she'd slammed the shot glass back onto the counter she let her head hit the wood again.

"Rough day?" the prospect asked.

"Yessss," Emma moaned, her voice muffed. "I have been on , like, six job interviews in the last few weeks. And _nothing_. No one is calling me back."

Leaning against the counter, Juice refilled her shot glass. "Maybe you should wait until after your nose has healed up and try again," he suggested gently. Emma's nose was still slightly swollen but the bruising had faded to a dirty yellow color. He couldn't help but imagine what the good people of Charming thought when she showed up on their doorstep. Her affiliation with the club wasn't a secret and while the town tolerated the club because they were the lesser of two evils and kept something even more insidious out of Charming's city limits, they weren't entirely ready to hop into bed with the club either.

So to speak.

"You could just work at the garage?" he offered again, nudging the second shot towards her. He wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do from here. He'd never been very good with women or fixing their problems or knowing the right thing to say. He was almost positive that what little pussy that was thrown his way was because of the Prospect patch and nothing more. He knew enough to know that out of the current crop of prospects he was almost a sure bet to patch in in another six months.

Unlike the rest of them, who had shown themselves to be capable sheep, doing what they were told when they were told, doing the heavy lifting so to speak, Juice had been the one to stand out, to shine.

All of those years he'd spent stuck behind a computer screen in high school had paid off. So when the club needed intel, he got it. When the club needed something buried in the ones and zeros, he did it.

When Emma didn't answer, he stood there awkwardly, holding the bottle of Jameson and staring down at the top of her head. "Emma?" he asked again, tentatively. He wasn't really sure if she wanted to talk or if she wanted him to leave her alone.

"I just…" she lifted her head to down the second shot of Jameson, sliding the glass back across the bar towards him. "I just want to do something for myself for once. I mean, I know I can work here. Gemma has already offered, more than once. But I want to be able to do something on my own."

She scowled, reaching out her hand for the bottle of whiskey, which Juice took to mean that their conversation was over. Secretly, he was relieved. He had no idea what to say to that. It seemed pretty simple to him. She needed a job and the club was offering her a job. Cut and dry.

_Women_, he thought as he watched her walk away from the bar, a little unsteady after two shots of whiskey on an empty stomach. Maybe it was better than he didn't understand them.

**xxx**

Emma had holed up on one of the couches tucked into a corner of the darkened clubhouse with her bottle of whiskey tucked into her side. She was in a sulking mood and it gave her a clear view of the room to people watch but she was tucked far enough away that some drunk hang-around wouldn't talk her ear off.

From her vantage point, she could see Gemma leaning against the jukebox with a glass of wine in one hand and a joint in the other talking to Clay. Tig and Bobby had long ago disappeared upstairs with a girl on each arm. Kyle Hobart was at the bar, flirting ineptly with a disinterested looking crow-eater.

She'd already picked up enough since she'd been back that she knew that Kyle had his high school sweetheart April at home, knocked up with his baby. Shaking her head with disgust, she tipped the bottle back up to her lips. She'd never been particularly fond of Kyle, he struck her as just a little too… slick. He struck her as a man who had an every man for himself mentality in a club that was all about the brotherhood.

She might never be a patch, but she sure as shit knew that the club was about the brotherhood above everything else.

As she took another swig off of the bottle beside her, Opie caught her eye and waves her over. He was in the middle of a game of pool with Jax. There was a pretty brunette leaning against the pool table at his side that she assumed was Donna. The girl had her long dark hair pulled back into a messy bun and her head was thrown back in a laugh.

Emma stood, steading herself for a moment, and still clutching her half-empty bottle of Jameson, made her way over to them.

Opie yanked her up into a hug and she instantly felt bad. This was probably only the second or third time she'd spent any time with Opie since she'd blown back into town. She'd had so much of her own shit to deal with: the feds and Jonny's betrayal that had cut a little deeper than she wanted to admit.

"Emma, I want you to meet my girl Donna," he said, with a huge shit eating grin on his face. Donna grinned and offered a shy wave. "Donna," he continued, "Emma is the annoying brat little sister I never wanted."

Emma stuck her tongue out at Opie. "It's so nice to finally meet you, Donna," she said, hoping her words didn't slur together too much because she was definitely a little drunker than she'd intended on getting.

She could tell that Donna was a little out of her element and wanted to put the other girl at ease. It was obvious that Donna wasn't used to the raucous after church parties yet and the amount of skimpily dressed sweetbutts wandering around was probably a lot to take in for someone who hadn't spent most of her life at the clubhouse or the garage.

Before Emma could say another word, Jax plucked the bottle of booze out of her hand. "Sorry, darlin'," he said, with a grin, "But aren't you a little young to be toting around a bottle of whiskey everywhere you go? Shit, the rate you've been sucking down this bottle over there, you're gonna give Piney a run for his money."

Emma scowled at him as he sucked down a few swallows of her whiskey. "Who died and made you the morality police," she grumbled.

As the two men went back to their game, which it looked like Opie was winning, Donna turned and winked at Emma with a sly grin on her face. "Emma, you think you could show me where the bathroom is?" she asked, all sugar and innocence.

"Sure," Emma said, curious to find out what Donna had up her sleeve. "But I think I just saw a gaggle of croweaters going in there. I'll take you over to the one at the garage."

The two women slipped unnoticed out of the clubhouse and made their way over to the picnic table outside of the garage under the blue-ish cast of the full moon. Once both of them were perched on the tabletop, Donna reached into her purse and pulled out a ziplock bag. "You look like you're having a rough night," Donna said, surprising the hell out of Emma when she pulled a joint and a lighter out of the bag and offered it to her. "I didn't know if you smoked or not but I thought I would extend the offer."

Emma gratefully took the joint and the lighter and lit it, taking a deep breath and holding it in her lungs for a second before exhaling. Already, she could feel the stress draining out of her body.

"Thanks," she said, offering Donna a big smile. "I've been on the job hunt for weeks and no one is biting. I don't know what it is. I mean, I didn't think that Charming had changed so much that you needed a fucking bachelor's degree to wait tables or anything. I don't know if Opie said anything, but I haven't been back home long and while everyone is being great and helping me out I'm tired of being indebted to every fuckin' person I know."

Emma took one more hit off of the joint before she passed it back to Donna. Opie's girl looked thoughtful for a second, "You know, I'm working at a restaurant downtown right now. I bet if I talked to my manager I could get you hooked up. She likes the shit I can score," Donna said, gesturing to the joint she was putting up to her lips. "So, she's really indebted to me."

Emma crossed her arms over her chest against the slight chill that evenings were starting to bring. Maybe it was the weed, which she had to admit was better than a lot of the stuff she'd smoked before, but she was almost considering taking Donna up on her offer. It felt different than it did taking it from Jax or Gemma. It felt less like charity.

"Sure," Emma said cautiously, "If you don't think it would be a big deal."

Donna nodded, taking a second toke and passing it back to Emma to finish off. "Not a big deal at all. I'll talk to her on Tuesday when I go back in."

Taking another hit, Emma smiled lazily, "So, where _do _you score this shit anyway? Because I've never had anything like it, especially not in Charming."

Donna grinned and took the roach from between Emma's fingers, blowing the cherry off and popping it into her mouth. "If I told you," she said, seriously, "I'd probably have to kill you."

Emma climbed down, a little unsteady on her feet and followed Donna back into the loud, smoky clubhouse. She felt like a ton had been lifted off of her shoulders. The job search might be close to being over and Donna's prime weed on top of it made her feel light headed and carefree.

Jax and Opie had finished their game and it was obvious Opie had won by the big grin on his face. As soon as he spotted them he swooped Donna up and planted a kiss on her upturned mouth. Jax, on the other hand, scowled and took a big swig of the Jameson that he'd stolen from her.

"How much did you lose?" Emma teased, leaning against the bar next to him.

"Five hundred," he grumbled, dejectedly tapping the ash off of his cigarette.

Emma took the opportunity to steal back her bottle of whiskey and shrugged her shoulders as she took a quick sip. "A fool and his money will soon be parted," she muttered under her breath.

Jax glanced up at her, fiddling with his cigarette. "What's that supposed to mean?" he glowered.

Emma shrugged again, "Nothing. Just that you've been trying to losing money to Opie at the pool table for the last how many years now?"

She had a point, Jax begrudgingly admitted. But to be honest, it wasn't entirely losing five hundred bucks to Opie that had been him in such a black mood. His mother had sashayed by on her way to the bar and snidely commented on his need to save money with a baby on the way.

All he wanted was one night where he didn't need to think about all of his fuck ups. All of his ridiculous messes that he had made for himself. Like Wendy, the biggest mess of them all. He'd just been tired; tired of just going through the motions and like the stupid fuck he was, he'd thought that marrying Wendy would fix that. Change it, somehow. That maybe, if he tried hard enough he could fix her and love her just as much as he had loved Tara.

But obviously, it hadn't worked and now here he was, a crank whore soon-to-be ex-wife and a baby on the way. A baby he wasn't anywhere near prepared for. He couldn't be someone's father, shit, he could barely keep himself above ground.

He sat back, twisting on the bar stool until he could see Emma. Her long dark hair spilled over her shoulders, curling gently towards the ends. She didn't have half a ton of makeup caked on her face like most of the bitches in the room; as far as Jax could tell, all she had on was a little eyeliner and whatever it was that girls used to make their eyelashes look huge. She was wearing skinny jeans that looked like she had been poured into them and a pair of flip-flops. Aside from Donna, Opie's girl, she was the only woman in the clubhouse that night not letting her tits hang out all over the place. She was wearing a plain, heather gray v-neck that gave just the hint of cleavage but nothing more.

And somehow, he thought, despite the fact that there were sweetbutts walking around in nothing but their panties, she'd managed to pull off being the sexiest woman in the room.

Maybe it was because he had no idea what she looked like naked, he mused. And he could say with a lot of certainty that he knew very well what every croweater in the clubhouse that night looked like naked.

"I'm gonna get out of here," he said, surprising himself. It was like the words just flowed out of his mouth without any input from his brain. "You coming?"

Emma shrugged her shoulders and glanced up at him, her eyes flashing with something that set his teeth on edge. "Sure, gimme a second." She downed the rest of the whiskey and sat the bottle down with a heavy thud.

Jax gestured towards the stairs with his chin, "Go on up, darlin'," he said, "I'll grab us something to drink and be up in a second."

Emma didn't think about it until she reached the room she knew he slept in and pushed open the door. "Jesus Christ," she hissed, when she'd closed the door behind herself. Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was the booze or a combination of both but this was really not where she'd expected to end the night. But when Jax had suggested getting out of the bar, Emma had smiled and fucking walked upstairs without giving it a second thought.

"What are you thinking?" she muttered to herself, catching her reflection in the mirror above the sink. The bathroom door stood open and she had a clear view of herself, her cheeks were flushed pink and she knew it was because she was stoned and drunk off of her ass. She was obviously in no position to be making decisions because if she were she wouldn't be waiting for Jax in his dorm room where the only form of entertainment was his bed. There wasn't even a TV in the fucking room so what had she thought they were going to do in here?

Play fucking Monopoly?

Sighing, Emma sagged back against the door, listening for Jax's heavy footsteps. On the other hand, though, she'd be lying if she said she hadn't wondered what it would be like to fuck Jax Teller. He never had trouble getting women in bed and she knew for a fact that he'd lost his virginity at fourteen because she'd walked in on it. All those years of practice must have at least taught him something.

_And didn't she need it?,_ a little voice in the back of her head asked. Weren't her fingers in the dark becoming less and less satisfying?

She could hear him, coming up the stairs. This was it, her change to leave without it becoming awkward. If she stayed, if she stayed in this room there would be things expected of her and she didn't know if she was ready to do those things. Not yet, anyway.

The door cracked open and Jax popped in, grinning as he held up a bottle of Jack. "Didn't have any more of your shit," he said, flopping down on the bed as though there were nothing unusual about this.

And she'd lost her chance, the decision was made for her. _Just stop overthinking it_, she told herself. Flopping down on the bed next to Jax, she took the bottle from him. "I guess I'll have to take one for the team, then."

They lay there in silence for a few moments, passing the bottle of booze between them. When Jax turned over onto his side to face her, Emma felt her heart seize in her chest. Not for the first time, she had to ask herself what she was doing there. What was she doing in bed with Jax Teller?

His mouth met hers in a crush of stale cigarettes and the Jack they'd just drank. His mouth was urgent, forcing her lips open so that he could slide his tongue between her teeth. It was like her mind suddenly shut down but her body still remembered what to do because she realized that she was returning his kisses, one hand fisted in his the knots of his hair.

When Jax slid his arms around her waist and hauled her up onto his chest, she suddenly realized where it was all going. His hands were already sliding along her bare skin underneath of her t-shirt. Emma leaned down, pressing her mouth against Jax's , her hips rocking involuntarily against his and she had to admit that she was pleased when he groaned.

His hands reached up, tangling into the ends of her long dark hair and he drew her closer only to put his hands on her shoulders and push her gently down his body. Naively, it took her a few moments to realize what he wanted. Her hands were nervous and shaking as she reached up to unfasten his belt, his pants.

Jax's eyes met hers, wide eyed and shining from the liquor she'd drank and the pot he knew she'd smoked with Opie's girl. Her mouth was slightly open as she panted and he could feel her fingers trembling against his skin as she struggled with his jeans.

Sobriety hit him suddenly and he closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the headboard of his bed and groaned. This time, not because of how good it felt to have her pressed against him but because he knew he had to stop her. He was treating her like a sweetbutt and she was too fucked up to tell him no. This wasn't the way a patch should treat a brother's daughter. Even though he really wanted it. He _really_ fucking wanted it. His hands reached down and stilled hers before she could get his pants over his hips; he knew he wouldn't be able to stop her at all if this went any further.

"What's wrong?" she asked, sitting up and he closed his eyes again briefly. If he kept looking at her there was a very good change that he would let her keep doing what she had been doing. Her skin was flushed with arousal, her lips were parted and she was breathing hard. It was all he could do to push her away and sit up, buttoning up his jeans and fastening his belt again.

"I can't do this," he said, his voice hoarse with arousal. He hardly knew himself in this moment, he wasn't exactly known for his self-control and in this moment he was exercising more than he'd known that he had.

"Why not?" she asked, rocking back on her heels and he tried to ignore the flash of hurt in her eyes.

"Because I'm trying to get back together with Wendy," he blurted out. "The kid deserves a mother and a father. I think we can make it work this time."

Emma took a deep breath and stood up, turning just enough so that he couldn't see her face. When she turned back around to face him she'd already schooled her features into a mask of disinterested boredom. She shrugged her shoulders, "Whatever you want, chief," she said coolly.

She left with the bottle of jack tucked under her arm.

Taking the stairs slowly, Emma tried to calm her racing heart. She tried desperately to quell the angry tears that were stinging behind her eyes. When she reached the clubhouse again, she caught sight of Juice, still behind the bar.

Slipping behind the bar, she replaced the half-drank bottle of Jack on a long mirrored shelf on the back wall. Emma gestured the prospect over, "Hey," she said, as casually as she could muster, "I'm really shitfaced. Can you ride me back to my house?"

**xxx**

"Where'd Emma go?" Jax asked, once he'd managed to pull himself together enough to go downstairs. Without thinking about it his eyes had automatically swept the room, seeking her out.

Opie glanced up from where he'd been getting to know the inside of Donna's mouth. "I don't know," he said, giving Jax a glare that clearly said he wanted to be left alone with his girl. "She left like half an hour ago with Juice, I think. I guess she was going home."

Jax tried to ignore the flicker of what could only be jealous behind his ribcage. He didn't own her; she wasn't his old lady and she wasn't wearing his crow. He tried to convince himself that he wasn't jealous, he was only looking out for a brother's kid. But deep down he knew that wasn't true. He wanted her, tonight and his almost brush with finally bedding her had told him as much. He couldn't keep pretending that he didn't. But he knew that he couldn't have her. He couldn't drag her into the train wreck that was his life. There was only one way for their story to end: with her broken hearted and him, maybe dead.

He wasn't an idiot and he hadn't forgotten who her father was. A patch that he shared the redwood table with. Connor might be in prison but that didn't mean that he would never see the light of day again and it sure as hell didn't meant that he couldn't find ways to get the job done even from the inside.

It was risking way too much especially when he knew that he wouldn't love her. Couldn't love her. He'd never been able to love anyone the same way that he'd loved Tara. She'd left a hole in his heart, his life, that he'd spent years trying to fill with someone else.

Wendy hadn't been the first, she was just one of a long line of women he'd tried to use to fill that void. Maybe she had just been hurt the worst by it.

And maybe what he'd told Emma to stop her from crossing that line that he knew they shouldn't cross was true. Maybe he should be trying to reconcile with Wendy. If she was going to be having his kid, didn't he owe her that much? To try?

He climbed on his bike, strapping his helmet on and peeled out of the Teller-Morrow lot. Without consciously making a decision, he found himself heading in the direction of the house he'd shared with Wendy; the one Emma lived in now.

The lights in the living room were on but the shades were drawn shut. In the driveway, he recognized the prospect's bike. Again, that strange feeling of jealousy fluttered just inside of his ribcage, twisted his stomach into a painful knot.

_It is none of your business who she fucks_, he reminded himself. _You had an opportunity and you turned it down. _

With a little effort, he didn't stop. He didn't bang on the front door and demand the prospect kick rocks. Instead, he headed for the open road. He needed some time to think and he couldn't do that standing outside of Emma's house all night.


	13. I Will Do These Things

**AUTHORS NOTE:** Finally! Sort of. At least they're making _some _progress. I think Juice is good for Emma… as a friend. She's learning to form relationships with people again. I'm pretty excited for her. So tell me, guys… do you like where this is heading? Is the take on Kohn something at least half-way unique? How strongly do you guys feel about Tara never coming back? And lastly, do you think that Emma was right to not let Jax past the walls that she's built up around herself too quickly? Let me know in the reviews… you're all fantastic and wonderful and I'd send you all cookies if I could! XOXO, Niki

**xxx**

"Fuck you!" Emma screamed, throwing herself backwards onto the couch and groaning. "Seriously, fuck you. I don't know how you did that but… _fuck you_."

Juice grinned, making a big show of blowing on the back of his knuckles and shining them on his kutte. "I'm just that good!" he crowed. For the fifth straight time he had beaten her in Mario Party. Emma clenched the controller to Juice's N64 between her fists so hard they reached over and gently eased it out of her hand.

"Eeeasy there, killer," he teased, "Wanna go again?"

Emma shook her head, grabbing the remote so that she could shut off the television. "I think I'm all Mario Partied out. That Mario, man. When he throws a party he means it."

Juice had brought his N64 over to Emma's, not only because she had a huge television but because she'd been reluctant to set foot in the clubhouse all week. He had a feeling that something had happened between her and Jax but it was none of his damn business. Jax was his sponsor, so it would serve him well in the long run not to get involved where he didn't belong.

Besides, Jax had already been acting weird towards him lately. No need to get himself hemmed up by sticking his nose where it shouldn't be. He still had high hopes of patching in after his year of prospecting was up and he wasn't going to ruin that now.

Besides, it was awesome to get away from the clubhouse sometimes. Emma didn't treat him like a prospect and it was a welcome relief. She didn't order him around or make him perform stupid menial tasks for her.

Whenever he could slip away from the clubhouse he found himself wandering over to her place to play video games and watch movies. Sure, the club was like family to him now, even as a mere prospect, but Emma felt like a friend. It was a welcome relief since he didn't feel as though he had many of those these days.

"You wanna play something else?" he asked, kicking back on her couch. He'd gotten pretty comfortable at her house pretty quickly. He was no stranger to rummaging around in Emma's fridge for food and he no longer said anything when he got up to use the bathroom. It was strange, but he definitely considered those two things when evaluating how comfortable he felt in a friendship. If he didn't feel the need to ask for a drink or ask to use the bathroom to take a piss, it was a solid friendship.

"Nah," Emma said, grabbing a can of Dr. Pepper out of the fridge and cracking open the top. "You want one?"

When he nodded, she grabbed another can from the fridge and tossed it his way. "I'm starving," Juice grumbled. "What do you have in there to eat?"

Emma frowned, looking up at him sheepishly. "Yeahhhh, so I haven't had a chance to go grocery shopping…" she muttered. But then she brightened up and grinned, "But you wanna go get some pizza?"

Juice didn't bother to offer her a helmet this time when she climbed on the back of his bike. He'd gotten used to her refusal to wear one even if he thought that maybe that was putting a little too much trust in his driving skills.

Emma swung her leg over the bike and wrapped her arms tight around Juice's waist. He'd be lying if he didn't admit that it felt nice to have someone of the female persuasion wrapped around him from behind but the idea of tapping Emma gave him the creeps. He was almost positive that fucking her would be like trying to have sex with his own sister.

Wrong and weird.

The pizza joint was small, homey and it had barely changed since Emma was a little girl. It had been one of the first places in Charming that her father had taken her when he'd brought her home.

She slid into the booth opposite Juice, melting into the familiar cracking red vinyl and grabbing a packet of parmesan cheese out of the wire holder on the table. Toying with the packet, she glanced up.

"So, thanks and shit," she muttered under her breath. It still wasn't easy for her, showing genuine affection or gratitude. Those things didn't fly in the foster system. They were stamped out at an early age by the harsh realities of the system itself and more importantly by the other kids.

"For what?" he looked confused, tilting his head like a curious puppy.

"For being the first legit friend I've had since I've come back home," she answered, honestly. Sure, she had Gemma and Clay, her Uncle Bobby and all the men who had taken a helping hand in raising her. But she had yet to find someone she could legitimately call a friend.

Juice had filled that roll and for the first time had let her feel like a normal eighteen year old girl. Playing video games and grabbing pizza late at night.

He laughed and shook his head, "Emma, you know I'm not hanging out with you because of the club or any bullshit like that. I'm hanging out with you because you're a cool chick and I have fun. Now shut up with that gooey shit before you make me tear up," he teased.

She laughed, throwing her packet of parmesan across the table and nailing him square in the face. "Fuck you."

**xxx**

He'd been thinking about it long and hard, thrown back on his bed with a joint tucked between his fingers. Jax knew that the right thing to do would be to seek Wendy out, try to make things work for the sake of this baby he was carrying. But to be honest, it couldn't be farther down the list of things that he wanted to do. He had never wanted to get married and he never _should _have been married.

But he'd been hurting so bad over Tara that he'd thrown himself into booze and pussy and made a lot of stupid choices that he shouldn't have made. Wendy was at the top of that list. A real fucking stupid choice.

And how he was paying for it. She was having his kid, a kid he didn't even want. But to be fair, the kid had never asked him to trust his junkie slut of an ex when she said she'd been keeping up with her birth control prescription. Obviously, she hadn't and in one night his life was as close to over as it could get.

Jax scrubbed a hand over his stubble and dropping the joint onto the bedside table. If he was going to go and track Wendy down, see what he could make of things, he was going to do it sober.

It didn't take him long to find her. It said a lot about her and their relationship—if you could call it that—that he knew just where to find her. Although, maybe deep down he had harbored some hope that Wendy wouldn't spend every waking minute in a fucking bar now that she was carrying his kid.

She was sloppy drunk, he could tell from the minute that he saw her across the room. She leaned into the table, head thrown back laughing. She might have even been beautiful then if she hadn't been wearing yesterday's smeared make up and if he couldn't spot the track marks on the insides of her arms from a mile away.

Wendy was one of those women who had once been beautiful and even though she'd spent years trashing her body, she thought she still was. But time and the crank and the booze weren't being kind to her.

Jax felt his blood boil when he saw her pick up a longneck of Corona and down nearly half the bottle in one guzzle. He should have seen this coming but for some reason he had half hoped that she'd stop all that shit now that she was pregnant.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he demanded, grabbing her upper arm hard enough that it would probably leave a bruise but he didn't care. He dragged her way from her gaggle of laughing crank whores and over past the pool tables.

"Jax?" Wendy demanded, blinking blearily up at him. Her pupils were huge and he could see his angry face reflecting back up at him in each of her glass eyes. She wasn't just drunk, he could tell right away, and it took every bit of self-control that he possessed not to slap her in the face.

He might not have wanted this baby but he sure as shit wasn't going to let her fuck him up before he had even sucked down his lungful of air.

"What are you on, Wendy?" he demanded, his voice a low growl. She was trying to pull out of his grip but his hands only tightened around her upper arms, holding her in place.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, deflecting his question, her bottom lip trembling. "You're hurting me, baby."

"What the fuck do you think I'm doing here, Wendy? You're knocked up with _my_ kid and you're in a fucking bar shitfaced at three o'clock in the afternoon!"

Wendy's quivering lip turned up in a sneer. "Oh, so you didn't give a shit where I was or what I was doing when I was just your wife but now that I'm carrying your kid, I might mean something to you?"

Jax shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah. That's exactly how it is. Look, Wendy… I know I've done a lot of wrong in this relationship but you haven't exactly made it easy either. I just wanna do what's right for our kid and you shootin' up and drinkin' isn't doing him any favors."

Wendy laughed, a harsh, guttural noise. "Whatever, Jax. What baby?" she demanded, shaking out her long, blonde extensions. "I lost the baby, like, weeks ago. So you can take your bullshit apologies and get out of my face."

She turned on her heel and stomped back over to the table and drained her glass of beer in one long swallow. Jax stood rooted to the spot, it was as if he'd been sucker punched in the gut.

Sure, he hadn't wanted the kid. Had been terrified of the idea of having the kid. But now, the reality that he was gone was something else entirely. He felt relieved. He felt guilty for feeling relieved and strangest of all, he felt sad. A deep, lonely sorrow for the baby he would never get to know. The baby that he might have loved more than he loved his own selfish desire not to be saddled down with a child.

Casting one last backwards look at his soon to be ex-wife, Jax stumbled out of the bar and back onto his bike. There was a deep seated rage growing inside of him and he knew that if he didn't get out of there soon, he would end up taking that rage out on Wendy.

The last thing he wanted to do was go to county lock up and be branded as a wife beater.

He found himself driving around Charming aimlessly. He wasn't really sure what he was looking for, who he was looking for. But the idea of the loneliness of the desert didn't really appeal to him for some reason.

Jax didn't remember making a conscious decision to ride to Emma's. It was surprising when he looked up to realize that he was in her driveway. The driveway was empty, but that wasn't surprising since she didn't have a car to drive yet but it did comfort him that Juice's bike wasn't there.

He wasn't going to think about that one, right now.

The doors were locked and he was considering using his key to go inside, but it didn't feel right so he slumped down on the steps and pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt up and over his head.

He'd just lit up his third cigarette when he heard the roar of a Harley. Emma was on the back of Juice's bike, her hair sticking up in odd angles around her face from the wind. For a second, he felt a stab of pure hatred for his prospect and his face must have showed it because Juice blanched, turning three shades paler than Jax ever thought he could look.

Emma glanced warily between the two men, "Juice, gimme a little bit. I'm gonna have to cancel our Mario death match, I think."

The younger man nodded and with a low rumble, he was tearing back up the street towards the clubhouse.

"What's up?" Emma asked, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Jax was suddenly overly focused on the burning cherry of his cigarette. Emma crouched down next to him and gently pulled the hood down off of his face so that she could see his eyes. They were rimmed with red and looked swollen. The uncomfortable knot in Emma's stomach got tighter, anything that brought the great Jax Teller to tears must have been pretty bad.

"What's going on?" she asked, sitting down next to him and leaning in until they were shoulder to shoulder. As angry as she might have been at Jax, there was too much history there for her to refuse him now. When he obviously needed someone and he'd chosen her to lean on.

"Wendy… lost the baby," he said, softly.

Emma's mouth went dry. After the last night she and Jax had shared together, she wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to do with this information. He'd pushed her away to reconcile with Wendy and sent her home with a bruise on her ego the size of Texas.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, because it was the only thing that she could think to say.

"I'm not," Jax said, with a short bark of a laugh. "Or maybe I am. I don't really know. Emma, I never wanted this kid and I sure as shit never wanted Wendy. So I don't know why I feel so… I feel like shit, Emma."

He looked up at her with wide blue eyes that didn't match his face. They were more vulnerable than she had ever seen them before. The Jax who was all swagger, all boisterous energy was gone. He had been replaced with this confused, broken man who had inexplicably chosen her to seek comfort from.

Taking a deep breath, Emma clenched her teeth. She knew that it was useless. She'd already made up her mind that she would be there for him. It didn't matter that her head was screaming at her to send him off to Gemma. To tell him to run to his mommy if he needed his boo boos kissed. But her heart was telling her that he had come to her for a reason and she was damn well going to do her best to help him work through whatever it was he was feeling.

"That's normal," she said. "We're complex, Jax. I know you live most of your life avoiding that kind of complexity but it's still there. You're still human. You're allowed to be relieved and sad all at the same time. I know you're not ready for a kid or that kind of commitment right now but that doesn't mean that you wouldn't have made one hell of a father. You don't have to feel guilty about this."

He didn't answer her, just started on his fourth cigarette, crushing the last butt under his boot. Standing, Emma pulled him to her feet and guided him inside the house. "You wanna beer?" she asked, after she had deposited him on the couch.

He nodded and fished out a couple of Guinness out of the refrigerator. She offered him one of the cans and he took it with a grimace tugging at his lips. "Oh shut up," she teased, popping the tab on her beer. "This is some good shit. Imported straight from the mother land, alright."

Emma had fully embraced her Irish heritage. Her mom had been second generation, probably one of the things that had drawn Connor to her in the beginning. Jax, however, had never grown to appreciate the ale like she and Connor did.

If they couldn't have Jameson, there was sure as shit a Guinness in their hand.

He took a long sip, even though the beer always tasted flat on his tongue. Flat and heavy, but it was welcome after the day he had had.

"I feel like shit, Emma. I'm sorry for dumping this all over you," he said finally. "I don't deserve it after…" Jax trailed off and cleared his throat. "It's just that if I tried to talk to Gemma, she'd just be thrilled that she wasn't stuck with Wendy for the next eighteen years. I just… I don't know. I wanted you."

Emma's breath caught in her throat and mentally she was chastising herself. But there was something about the way he had said it. The way he had said that he wanted her. It had done strange things to her insides.

"Well," she said, "Here I am."

Jax turned to her look at her, finally, and his red rimmed eyes caught and held hers. He pulled her close, tucking his chin down on the top of her head and breathing in deep. "Emma," he muttered. "I'm fucking sorry. " He knew he had to say what he wanted to say now. Before he looked down into her face and couldn't do it.

"For what?" she asked, her breath hot against his neck. It twisted him up inside and he felt like a man on the edge of something. A cliff, maybe. He was ready to jump.

"I'm sorry for pushing you away the other night. When I told you… what I told you… I didn't meant a fucking word of it. I'm just… scared. Okay, I'm scared. Because you sure as shit deserve something a lot more than me. I'm a fucking mess, Em. But god… I want you."

He felt her stiffen in his arms and she brought both of her hands up to plant against his chest, pushing back gently until she could look him in the face. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" she bristled. Inside, her heart was racing. Her pulse pounded in her ears and her body screamed for him. But outside, she kept him at arms distance.

This was the last fucking thing she needed right now, but oh god, she wanted him. There was a fire burning deep in her belly and she wanted nothing more than to tangle her hands in his hair and pull him close. Emma could sense that she was standing on the edge of something dangerous, something sharp and terrifying. She wasn't sure how to push back, put some space between herself and Jax's neediness.

"Stop," she barked, physically pulling back from him and sipping on her beer more calmly than she actually felt. She was surprised that her hands weren't shaking as she lifted the can up to her mouth.

Jax looked surprised and she had to stop herself from laughing. Maybe she would have if she weren't so angry at him.

Sighing, she pressed on. "Stop pulling this bipolar shit on me. You want me, you don't want me, you want me… have you ever stopped to think about what I want? Have you ever stopped to ask me if I even wanted _you _or did you just assume that because the croweaters drop their panties for you in a heartbeat that I would too?"

When he didn't respond, she sucked in a long breath, "And Jax, seriously. Why would I want to jump into bed with you, huh? Show me a woman that wants to be runner up and I'll show you some nasty pussy. I mean, did you really think that I'd be ready to throw my legs in the air just because you couldn't work things out with your ex-baby mama? Oh hey, Emma… so that pussy didn't work out, can I have yours instead?"

Jax's face turned bright red and he sputtered when he spoke. "That's not what this is Emma. Shit, I'm trying to tell you that—," he let the sentence trail off into thin air as he rubbed one palm down his face. "Nevermind," he spat. "Fuck it."

He was halfway to the door before she called him back. "Why are you doing this, Jax? Why are you telling me all this shit now?"

"Because I'm tired of running from the fact that ever since you walked back into town I can't get you out of my head. I'm tired of trying not to think about you all the fucking time. I'm tired of trying to convince myself that I shouldn't want you as bad as I do," he said, too tired and exhausted to worry about his already bruised ego.

Emma leaned back, letting out a slow sigh. "And why shouldn't you want me?"

As much as she didn't want to admit it—even to herself—it was all she could do not to pull him down on the couch with her. She was in a silent war with her head and her heart and she knew that whichever way this shit landed, she was going to be on the losing side.

The Jax Teller that she knew didn't do long term commitments. He didn't get invested in pussy, unless that pussy belonged to Tara Knowles. She had been the last woman that Emma had ever seen Jax torn up about.

"Why?" he barked, letting out a short bitter laugh and drawing her thoughts back to the present. "Why not? I'm a bitter fucking mess of a person, Emma. How is that, for starters? And if your father even knew half of what I've been thinking when it comes to you I'd already be dead."

"My dad is in jail," she reminded him, although they both knew that something as trivial as prison couldn't stop Connor. "And he's not really as bad as you think he is, his bark is worse than his bite." They both knew that was a lie.

"Emma… you know I'm just going to drag you down with me." It was like he was begging her to send him away. Pleading with her to turn him down and tell him to get the fuck out.

But she couldn't.

She was crossing the living room towards him before she had even had a chance to register that her feet were moving. Emma rolled her eyes up at the idiot standing in front of her. "Seriously?" she asked, "Because you're the only one in this room who is a huge fucking trainwreck? Huh? What do you think I spent the last four years doing, huh? Shitting rainbows and eating cupcakes for breakfast and falling asleep every night on a pile of golden retriever puppies?"

She was rewarded with a smile, the first he'd cracked since she'd come home to find him on her porch. She didn't wait for him to respond. Emma rose up onto her tiptoes and grabbed two handfuls of Jax's leather. She pulled him down to her until she could press her mouth against his.

"It's my turn to kiss you," she snarked when she pulled back from his lips. Before she could say anything else though, he'd crushed her back against him, pressing his mouth down on hers. His lips were bruising, seeking and hungry against hers and his big palms almost completely circled her waist as he held her in place so that he could explore her mouth with his.

Up until this point when he had kissed her it had been a sneak attack. A quick, fast and dirty kiss that had lasted all of a minute or two. Or, one of them had been under the influence of alcohol, which hardly counted. This time, it was slow. It was like he was trying to memorize her mouth, her teeth, her tongue.

She didn't realize that he was walking her backwards until the backs of her calves hit the edge of the sofa and she sank down with Jax tumbling down on top of her. His mouth was hot and needy on hers and she couldn't stop herself, her hands fisted handfuls of his kutte, pushed it up until her hands met bare skin. She trailed her fingers up his back, feeling the slight rise of the skin where he wore the reaper.

Jax's mouth moved down to her neck, sucking on the tender skin just beneath her ear. She moaned, low and deep in her throat and pressed urgently against him. When his hands started to inch underneath of her shirt, it took all of her will power to push him back.

"What?" he asked, his cheeks flushed and his arousal straining against the front of his jeans. "What's wrong, Em?"

Emma shook her head, her deep red-brown hair falling out of the bun she's yanked her hair into and around her face. "Nothing's wrong. But I'm not doing it like this."

"Like what?" his voice was strained. He wanted her, needed her. He felt like if he couldn't have her, plunge inside of her now, that he would explode.

Emma's eyebrow shot up to her hairline and a wry smirk twisted her mouth. "I'm not doin' it on a couch like a croweater after you show up at my house because your ex-baby mama wouldn't take your ass back. I want you Jax but I'd be fucking stupid if I just fell back and spread my legs open for you. I know how you operate, Jackson Teller and I'm not going to be a notch in your belt."

"Emma—," he protested but she cut him off. "Nuh-uh," she whispered, pressing a finer to his lips. "Prove to me that you want me. Then we'll talk."


	14. Memory and Honesty

"Old man," Emma said, seriously, "You'd better not be fucking with me."

Piney rolled his eyes, even though Emma couldn't see him. He had the young woman blindfolded and was carefully leading her through the parking lot at Teller-Morrow.

"Shut up, kid," he muttered gruffly, tightening Emma's blindfold. "Just keep walking in a straight line."

"You'd better not run me into anything," she muttered under her breath, carefully feeling around with her feet before she would take a step. It was driving Piney crazy. It was taking them twice as long as it needed to cross the parking lot to the garage because the girl was walking so slow, convinced that he was going to let her trip and eat asphalt.

"Little girl, I am not going to let you fall. Now will you just trust me and pick your feet up. We ain't got all day," he groused. Emma grinned from beneath her blindfold and begrudgingly picked her pace up a little bit.

She had no idea where they were heading. Juice had gotten a call from Piney about half an hour ago when they'd been right in the middle of a Mario Party grudge match and told him he was needed at the clubhouse. The old man told him to bring Emma with him and when they'd pulled up in the lot he'd been waiting for them with the blindfold in hand.

Finally, they stopped and Piney let go of her arms. Emma reached her hands up to pull back the blindfold. She blinked a few times, her eyes readjusting themselves to the sunlight. Piney was standing next to one of the many closed garage bay doors with what could almost pass for a grin on his weathered old face.

Before she could ask him what the hell he was doing and if he had finally gone senile on her, he stooped down and gave the garage door a push.

As it rolled up on its tracks she could see Jax's boots and another pair next to him that judging from that size had to be Opie's feet. They were standing on either side of a car.

When the doors rolled back completely, she could see that they were standing on either side of _her _car. It looked nothing like it had when she'd brought it home. It was shining like it had just come off of the assembly line, the soft top was brand new and torn and mildewed and the seats had been recovered with a soft, buttery leather.

Jax had a shit eating grin on his face as he watched Emma's eyes widen and take in all the work they'd done on the piece of junk she'd brought home. It really had been a disaster and he thought she was lucky she'd gotten it as far as she had before she'd needed a tow. Shit, with the way that thing was jerry rigged inside, she was lucky that it hadn't gone up in flames.

"Are you just going to stand there?" he asked, giving her a raised eyebrow, "Or are you going to take her out to stretch her legs?"

Emma grinned, wide and real, and Jax caught a glimpse of the woman she might have been if it hadn't been for the state of California. A woman with an easy grin and a quick laugh. Breaking through that fucking wall she'd put up around herself was harder than bringing down the Berlin wall.

He tossed her the keys and slid into the passenger seat. Emma hurled herself into Opie's waiting arms, squeezing him tight around the ribs and giving him a kis son the cheek, before she climbed into the car door that he held open for her.

"Who said you get to come for the inaugural voyage?" she teased, looking over at Jax who was riding shotgun.

"Because," he said, "I performed a miracle to get this thing up and running and I deserve to enjoy the fruits of my labor. And as far as cages go, it's not half bad."

"Fruits of _your_ labor," Opie grumbled, moving back as Emma started the car. The engine purred and growled and she had to admit, she was in heaven. She'd always loved being on the back of a motorcycle but the freedom of wrapping her hands around her very own steering wheel was something else altogether.

She drove around the streets of Charming hesitantly at first. Almost as though she were afraid to go too far from the garage in case the entire thing blew up in her face. But at Jax's gentle teasing, she decided to put her trust in the work he and Opie had done and take her out to stretch her legs a little bit.

The car handled easily, the wind whipping through her hair and blowing behind her like a banner. They didn't talk for several minutes as she put the car through its paces, all the while grinning like a kid at Christmas.

It did something to Jax to see that smile on her face. It was such a rare occurrence these days that he loved to be able to just stop and watch it whenever she did. It felt even better that he was the reason she was grinning like that. That he had been able to give her something that she'd been wanting and needing for a long time. Too damn long.

He'd given her freedom. He'd given her the open road. It felt good to be able to give her all that, he knew how much it meant. But there was a little voice in the back of his head and it was asking him if he was sure that fixing the car was such a great idea.

Because now there would be nothing to stop her from leaving Charming—and him—in the dust. After all, Tara had done it.

"Pull in here!" he shouted at her over the rushing of the wind. Emma pulled off the road and into the parking lot of a little diner he'd discovered once when he was out there clearing his head during the shitty, dark years after Tara had packed up and left.

It was small and dated but it was clean and the food was good. That was all that really mattered to him.

"Are you some sort of fucking mind reader?" Emma demanded, shoving the keys into the pocket of her jeans and climbing out of the car. "I was just starting to think about how hungry I was."

Jax gave her a sly smile and followed her into the diner. "Maybe," he teased, "Maybe I could just hear your stomach rumbling even over all that noise."

**xxx**

Emma perched on the corner of Jax's bed, playing with the ends of her hair. She watched him with some trepidation as he pulled on an oversized SAMCRO t-shirt over the black Kevlar vest that she'd just helped him strap on. Over that he layered his kutte and she was left staring at the Reaper.

"You're awful quiet back there," he said, glancing at her over his shoulder.

Emma shrugged, "Just didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Some stray cat keeps sitting underneath of my window and yowling all night." It was only half a lie. There was a cat but he hadn't kept her up all night, not really.

He was getting ready for a run to Reno and it was all happening too soon for her. She couldn't really process her feelings about it. They'd never discussed that night at Emma's house when he'd told her how much he wanted her. Things had gotten a whole lot less awkward between them once they'd both acknowledged their feelings, and yeah, she'd kissed him until her lips were bruised on a few occasions since then but club business and the job that Donna had gotten her ensured that they'd barely spent more than an hour alone together since that night.

She wasn't stupid. She'd been raised to this life and she knew what the runs meant and she knew what Reno meant and she also knew that what happened on a run stayed on a run. Road pussy was road pussy and it didn't become something that an old lady needed to know about unless it followed a Son home.

Not that she was Jax's old lady.

She didn't know what they were to each other, the whole relationship felt confusing and awkward. She didn't think she should tell him that she was worried that he was going to fuck other women while he was gone and she wasn't even sure if it was something that she had any right to be worried about in the first place.

"Just stick your head out of the window and tell Juice to go home" he teased. "But seriously do you want me to get someone out there to set a trap or something?" Jax asked, assuming the role of dutiful landlord.

Emma shook her head, "Nah, it's okay. I'll just throw some water out on it or something."

Securing his knife on his belt, Jax turned and tugged her up off of the bed and into his arms. His mouth met hers, exploring and needy and hungry for her taste.

"A week is gonna be too damn long, darlin'," he groaned against her neck as he dipped his head to taste the skin at her collar bone.

Pushing him back, Emma mustered a wry smile, "Be careful, Jax."

"Just a protection run," he said, kissing her forehead before he lead her out into the hall and down into the clubhouse. "I'll be fine. It'll be like I'm on vacation."

Emma nodded and stepped back, lingering over by the bar while she watched him talk to Opie and slide a handgun into the back of his pants. They were keeping everything really quiet, not being seen together too much. There was no reason for word to get out that something was going on between them before either of them even knew what it was themselves. It especially didn't need to get back to her father. Not yet.

If he was going to hear about something going on between her and Jax then he was going to hear it from her mouth. She wouldn't have any of his brother's telling him before she could.

The guys were heading out into the parking lot and Emma fell in step behind Gemma, who swung her arm around Emma's waist and tugged her close. They watched in silence while the guys roared out of the parking lot and onto the road leading out of Charming.

"How you doin', baby?" Gemma asked, turning to face Emma and swiping a piece of her dark hair out of her face. "I feel like I don't ever see you anymore now that you've moved out of the clubhouse."

Emma shrugged her shoulders and returned Gemma's smile with one of her own, even if it was a little forced. "I'm fine, Gem. Just settling in, figuring out this whole thing."

Gemma pulled her over to one of the picnic tables and offered her a cigarette from her pack. Emma gratefully lit it up and inhaled deeply while Gemma did the same. "You're not still thinking about leaving, are you?" the older woman asked, breaking the silence left by the motorcycles leaving the lot.

Emma shrugged, again. She wasn't sure how to answer that question. Her life had been in one long, out of control spiral since she'd turned eighteen and found herself running from a would-be murder scene. Things with Jax, especially, were twisting her up inside. She didn't know what to make of it. Sure, she'd grown up street smart and hard but she had never been in love. Didn't know if she knew how to fall in love and especially didn't know if that was what she was feeling for Jax.

Crushes and boys weren't something that she'd ever really had time to worry about in her day to day on the inside of the California foster system. She was woefully naïve and inexperienced when it came to that.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. I'd like to stay, but I need to get on my feet. Figure out what I'm doing and where I need to go. I've been waiting for four years for my life to start, Gemma…"

The older woman nodded, taking another hit off of her cigarette. "Then let me ask you another question, baby. What's going on with you and my son?"

Emma froze, inwardly panicking. "N-nothing," she muttered. "I mean, we're friends and shit. What are you asking, Gemma?"

Gemma chuckled under her breath. "What do you think I'm asking? C'mon, honey. I'm not stupid. I see that shit."

"What shit?" Emma asked, stumbling slightly over her words. She wasn't purposely playing dumb, she honestly couldn't figure out what had tipped Gemma off about whatever was going on between her and Jax. Shit, Emma herself wasn't even all that sure what was going on between her and Jax.

At the diner, when they'd taken her car out for a test drive, was the last time they'd had more than twenty minutes alone together. They hadn't talked a lot about what was going on between them. She was starting to worry that all it had been between them was a sad, lonely man seeking comfort wherever he could find it.

Until he'd pulled her into his room during one of the after church parties at the clubhouse and pressed his mouth against hers, there was something stronger than just _want_ in his kiss this time. It was something she would almost call _need_ if it didn't scare her so much to call it that.

"I'm going to prove it," he whispered fervently in her ear and when she pulled back, he had that cocky grin on his face. It was the one that used to drive her crazy and annoy the hell out of her. But this time, it sent a riot of butterflies loose in her stomach.

_Mutant butterflies with machine guns_, she though wryly.

"Alright," Gemma said with a knowing smile. Emma glanced up just in time to see that the smile didn't reach the older woman's eyes. It was a cold, hollow twist of the lips and it made her nervous.

She had always been close to Gemma. Shit, the woman had practically raised her when her father had brought her home to Charming after her mother's death. She was close enough to know that her involvement with Jax was going to change things between them.

As far back as she could remember Gemma had regarding all of the women Jax had brought home with contempt, thinly veiled but palpable. She knew she was about to cross a line that maybe she could never uncross.

Emma sucked the last few hits off of cigarette and tossed it aside, crossing the parking lot to her car without a backwards glance. It was time to figure out which side of that line she wanted to be on.

**xxx**

Jax leaned back against the bar, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out a little too hard into the ash tray.

"What's your deal, brother?" Opie asked, quietly. He was nursing a longneck with a cigarette in the other hand. On these long runs, especially the ones that lead them through Nevada, he was usually the only one of his brothers that wasn't partaking in the local pussy.

But tonight, Jax had been turning it down left and right. Jax was usually a little more discriminating than the rest of his brothers unless he was too drunk to see straight but he usually settled on one eventually.

And even Opie had to admit that there was some fine looking pussy in the room tonight. Nevada always took care of them. But he'd given up road pussy when he'd fallen head over heels in love with Donna Lerner. He didn't miss it, though. Going without for a few nights was nothing as long as he had her sweet ass to come home to.

Jax wasn't usually alone by this time of night, though. Opie wondered absently if it had anything to do with Emma. The two of them, they were dancing around something. It didn't take a genius to see that.

"What?" Jax asked with a shrug. "I just don't see anything I like."

Opie rolled his eyes and wondered, briefly, just how smooth Jax thought he was. The only time that Jax Teller had ever stopped sniffing around for pussy was when he'd been tangled up with Tara Knowles.

"Bullshit," Opie muttered, appraising the room. "Because if I didn't want to learn to take a piss sitting down I see quite a lot that I like."

Jax made a face, "She got you that pussy whipped already?"

Opie grinned and drained his beer. "Brother, you have no idea how good that pussy is. It's worth it."

Jax grimaced and leaned behind the bar to pull two more longnecks from the cooler full of ice they were half submerged in. He handed one to Opie and then used the edge of the scarred bar to crack the top off. "I'm just not feeling it tonight, man. That okay?"

Opie shrugged his shoulders, "Yeah, I'm just wondering if there's a reason you're not feeling it is all."

Jax bristled. "Since when are you so interested in my sex life?"

Opie grinned, shaking his head as he took a long swig from his beer. He wasn't going to rise to Jax's bait. He knew what he knew and he didn't really need his friend to confirm it. Emma had him hook, line and sinker even if neither of them knew it yet.

"I'm going to bed," Jax muttered, grabbing his smokes and lighter off of the table before he pushed through the crowd of croweaters and sweetbutts and disappeared down the hallway leading to the dormitories.

**xxx**

Jax sucked in his breath as they neared the last mile stretch to the clubhouse. He knew it was stupid to hope that Emma would be there, waiting for him, but he hoped she was none the less.

The last three days had dragged on mercilessly. Seventy-two hours might be just enough time for Emma to rethink involving herself with him. It might be just enough time for her to realize what a fucking train wreck he was and how much better off she would be if she could get as far away from him as possible.

But when he, Happy and Bobby pulled into the TM parking lot, he saw her standing with Gemma. She was wearing a pair of jeans that looked like she must have been poured into them and a heather gray Henley with the top three buttons undone. Her long dark hair was pulled back off of her neck in a messy bun and Jax longed to pull it loose and run his hands through it.

But he kept his hands to himself, clenching them at his side as he climbed off of his bike and stretched his legs. He'd agreed to keep whatever this was between them quiet, for now at least.

And that meant he couldn't touch her.

Not here, anyway.

Deep down he knew Emma was right. They needed to figure this shit out between them before they went public because it was going to have to be handled real delicately if Jax didn't want to find himself hemmed up for going after a brother's daughter.

Absently, he kissed Gemma on the cheek and managed to graze Emma's thigh with his hand when he did. She shot him a look but it did nothing to satiate his need to touch her.

"Gonna go get cleaned up," he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear before he turned and headed for the clubhouse, shrugging off his kutte as he went.

True, he was covered in road grime and his muscles screamed, sore from the amount of hours he'd just logged on the road. But he'd be lying if he didn't admit, at least to himself, that he was hoping that Emma would find a way to slip into his room with him.

He didn't have to wait long, he'd just managed to slid his shirt off of his aching shoulders when he heard the door open and shut quietly behind him.

"You sure must have a death wish, Teller," she muttered, not making a move to close the gap between them.

He shot her a grin over his shoulder and for a minute he saw what was underneath that layer of spit and fire she wore like a Kevlar vest. It was like all the stress had melted away and for a split moment, she looked her eighteen years and not a year over. Her hands were clasped nervously in front of her and she was leaning forward ever so slightly on the balls of her feet.

Without thinking, he turned and snatched her close to him, pressing his chin against the top of her head. There was a vulnerability about her, a fragility, that wasn't usually there and it made his chest tighten and ache in a way he couldn't fully explain.

But when he pulled back, she looked up at him with flashing eyes. The moment was gone and the Emma who had weathered more than any woman ever should was standing in front of him.

"Maybe," he said, finally answering her. "But if I'm going down, you're coming with me. "

He pulled her down onto the bed with him and she landed on his chest. Emma scrambled to sit up but he held her against him. "Kiss me?" he asked, flashing her the smile that opened a thousand thighs but somehow not hers.

"Since you asked so nicely," she teased, leaning down and pressing her mouth against his. Her lips were firm, full and sweet. If he could, he'd stay here with her for hours, tasting her mouth and exploring it with his tongue.

_God_, he thought to himself, _Ope's right. Haven't even got a taste of the pussy yet and I'm already pussy whipped._

But there was something different about this, all of it. He'd been afraid to let this happen in the beginning. Afraid for a lot of reasons, but he knew himself and he was afraid that he'd discover that he only wanted her for her pussy and that once he had it, he'd lose interest.

It wasn't something he was proud of but it was who he had become after Tara. A man who didn't give a shit as long as the tits were nice and the pussy was tight.

But here he was, a beautiful ass woman straddling his hips and he was happy just to be able to kiss her. Just to run his tongue over her teeth, taste the soft places inside of her.

Reluctantly, Emma pulled away from him, running her fingers over her mouth. "I better get back," she said, leaning down for once last kiss. "Before someone puts two and two together."

She climbed off of him and he fought the urge to beg her to come back. Before she opened the door, she gave him a guarded glance over her shoulder. "How was the run?" she asked lightly.

And with all honesty, he could tell her, "Lonely."

**xxx**

The party was like any other after-run party. An excuse to load up on pussy, weed, and booze for most of these guys. He was glad to be home but the fact that he had to put some face time in before he could suggest to Emma that they go back to her place was excruciating.

He was batting away yet another crow eater when he realized that it had been a long damn time since he'd seen Emma anywhere in the clubhouse. Scanning the room, he didn't catch sight of the Prospect either.

Jax felt a stab of something that he might have called jealousy if he were being honest with himself. With a grip on his longneck Corona that was threatening to break the bottle in two, he slipped into the hallway leading to the back bedrooms.

If the Prospect were with Emma, he wasn't sure what he was going to do. But he was pretty sure it would involve his fist getting up close and personal with the asshole's face. Or maybe he'd just take the beer bottle and—

Jax froze. From one of the bedrooms he could hear groaning. And then a deep male voice growling, "If you don't stop squirmin'..."

He slid through the hall as quietly as he could until he was standing outside of the door. Jax's teeth were clenched so tight his whole jaw was throbbing. Sure, he and Emma hadn't set anything in stone in regards to their relationship yet, but it stung to know she was in there with someone else… one of his brothers, maybe… when he had gone without for the entire running. Thinking of nothing but getting back and feeling her little body pressed up against his again. Looking forward to maybe figuring out where this thing between them was going to go.

"It tickles," he heard Emma say through the thick wood of the door and he felt a knot of rage twisting in his chest. He tried to tamp it down but he couldn't.

Without thinking, just full of hurt and jealousy and anger, Jax threw the door open. "What the fuck is—."

The words died on his tongue. Emma was stretched out on the bed, her shirt pulled up around her breasts and tucked into the bottom of her bra. Her jeans were unbuttoned and slid down her hips so far that he could see a hint of red lace panties peeking out.

And then there was Happy. Leaning over her with a pair of black surgical gloves on his hands and a tattoo gun poised to lay down some more ink on Emma's ribcage. Happy was watching him with a knowing look on his face, eyebrow crooked at the look on Jax's face.

Emma recovered first, shooting him a pointed, angry look from behind Happy's back. But when she spoke, she sounded like she had earlier up in his room. Easy and happy and relaxed. "What do you think?"

Emma gestured at the new ink that spanned her ribcage. It was a black birdcage with its door hanging open and above it, a bird flying into the distance. Happy was finishing up the shading.

"I love it," he said, but he wasn't looking at that tattoo. Or, he wasn't looking at _just_ the tattoo. He was also looking at the delicate curve of her flat stomach where it disappeared into her jeans. The way her hips swelled outward from her narrow waist. Jax pulled his attention away from the way she was spread out on the bed before he ended up doing something stupid like throwing her over his shoulder and dragging her back to her place right in front of the whole club.

Happy, still fixing Jax with a knowing look, turned back to the piece. "You alright if I finish… _big brother_," he added. He said it in a knowing voice and instantly Jax knew that Happy knew that he hadn't burst into the room with the caring and concern of an older brother or cousin. He'd come flying through that door like a man driven half-crazy by jealousy.

Jax nodded his head and the sound of Happy's tattoo needle went to work again.

"You're girl, here," Happy said, again with that damn knowing smile, "Is a beast. We've been at this piece for a good two hours and she ain't asked for one break."

Emma shrugged her shoulders almost imperceptibly so that she didn't disturb the skin where Happy was shading in the birdcage. "I've got a high pain tolerance."

Only Jax caught the slight inflection in her voice that told him that that pain tolerance had been built up over the last four years. He instantly remembered that picture he'd found in Emma's things. The picture of her busted up face. He couldn't help but wonder how many other injuries hadn't been documented. How many times had she been knocked around and who had done it?

He knew she'd probably never tell him.

**xxx**

Joshua Kohn scrubbed a hand over his face, hard. His cell phone had only rang three times and that was a change from the last week when someone from the office had called him about a dozen times.

He'd have to tell them something eventually, but he felt like he was so close. So close to finally getting Emma Reid to flip on the club. He'd seal the RICO deal and he'd finally get an offer from the ATF.

Emma was standing out on the porch of that little, squat house that she rented from Jax Teller. He'd seen him there a few times, him and that little brown fucker they called Prospect. His blood boiled whenever he thought about how everything he'd warned Emma about had come true. They were already using her as a pass around. A fucking sweet butt. She was too pretty, too young for that kind of hard life and he knew what it would do to her eventually.

It would either get her killed or end with her shackled to some Son as his Old Lady. There was so much more out there for such a beautiful, young girl. She reminded Kohn of his Elizabeth. A beautiful, vibrant woman that he loved very much. Unfortunately, Elizabeth hadn't loved him as much as he had loved her.

Shaking his head, Kohn sighed and reached for the bottle of Bud Light sitting next to him. He knew he shouldn't be drinking on a job, knew he shouldn't be drinking period after the problem he'd had when Elizabeth had left him and filed that restraining order against him.

It had almost cost him his job, his life… but he couldn't think about that now. He held the binoculars back up to his eyes. There was a house that was for rent, standing empty, across the street from Jax Teller's old house. It had been nothing much to jimmy the lock and find a way inside.

He always cleaned up after himself, every single time. He wasn't breaking and entering, he told himself. He was appropriating for the sake of the investigation. Anyone would see it like that.

If he were caught, a simple flash of his badge would work. They'd forgive him everything as long as they knew that he was a federal agent. It worked every single time.

Emma was standing on the porch, a coffee mug in her hand. She looked amazing in a simple red flannel button down and a pair of jeans that looked like she'd been poured into them. Her long dark hair hung loosely down her back and the fading sunlight caught the red highlights in her chestnut brown locks.

There was a low rumble that got louder and louder as it came closer and he recognized Jax Teller's bike as it pulled up into the driveway. Kohn hated to see the bright smile that lit up Emma's face when Jax climbed off of his bike and took a few long strides to the porch.

"Shit," Kohn hissed. It was obvious that something was already going on between those two, as much as he had hoped Emma would stay out of the young, heir-apparent's way . He dropped the binoculars in disgust when he saw the way that Emma pressed herself into the Prince.

**xxx**

"So," Emma said, opening the front door and slipping back into the living room. Jax followed her, stripping off his kutte as she shut the door behind him. As sexy as she found his leather to be, she couldn't lie that it made her feel good when he pulled it off as soon as he walked in the door.

It made her feel like he was spending time with her as Jax. Jax and Emma. Not Emma and a Son. Or a patch and his club brother's daughter. He slid his hands up her hips and circled her waist, careful to avoid the tender patch of skin where Happy had recently finished her tattoo.

"So?" he asked, lowering his head and pressing his mouth to the tender spot where her neck curved into her shoulder.

Emma pressed forward into him and he groaned against her skin. "Darlin'," he said in a husky voice that betrayed his desire, "Do you know how long I've been missing you."

Emma grinned, her smile hidden in his shoulder. Reluctantly, she pulled away and tangled her fingers in the bottom of his long sleeve flannel shirt. "Dinner's almost ready," she said.

Jax followed her to the kitchen, breathing deep and using every last shred of self-control he had to stop himself from pushing her into the bedroom. He knew, logically, that he needed to move slow with her. Although slow had never been something that Jackson Teller had ever practiced. He knew enough to know that at least once, she'd come very close to being raped. He wasn't a stupid man, even if he'd never finished high school. He knew that that did something to a woman that he would never understand and he didn't want to put Emma in a position where she was afraid of him.

Emma leaned over and pulled an amazing looking baked macaroni and cheese out of the oven. It bubbled and oozed as it cooled on the stovetop and she reached into a bag next to her and pulled out a grocery store rotisserie chicken.

"So, I think it's best if you know up front that macaroni and cheese is pretty much the extent of my cooking capabilities," she said, looking chagrined as Jax laughed.

"Darlin', your cooking skills are pretty low on my list of deal breakers."

Emma cocked an eyebrow at him, "From what I hear, you don't _have_ deal breakers," she teased. "I've seen some of your—."

Jax was quick to cut her off. He jumped to his feet and took the chicken out of her hand, putting it down on the table. "Stop," he said, taking her face in his hands and tilting her head back until he could see her eyes. "I've fucked a lot of women, Emma. I'm not going to lie to you. I couldn't even if I wanted to because you've known me long enough to know that's true. But you ain't no sweetbutt, darlin'. And whatever this is going to be with you… it ain't gonna be that."

Emma's breath caught in her throat and as she leaned up to kiss him, the phone rang. Sighing, Emma rocked back onto her heels and stared hard at the offending piece of plastic.

"You gonna answer that?" he asked, his lips turned up into a smirk.

"Yeah," she said, sighing, "I guess."

Jax eased back down into the kitchen chair, pulling an ashtray over and fishing a cigarette out of his battered pack. He'd just gotten it lit and taken a few strong pulls when he heard the phone clatter to the floor.

Jax was on his feet in an instant. Emma stood where the phone had dropped, her face pale and her hands shaking.

"Ems, what's wrong?" he demanded, the softness gone out of his voice when he saw her stricken face.

"My dad…" she said, her voice empty. "He's been attacked."

**xxx**

**AUTHORS NOTE: **Thanks so much for being patient with me and this chapter. I'm taking an accelerated English course this semester and it's eating up a lot of my free time. Ugh. But I thought that maybe a nice long, eventful chapter would make up for my absence. So, tell me what you think? How do you feel about Kohn and his fixation on Emma? Do you think that she and Jax can finally make whatever is between them work? XOXO, Niki.


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